What stories are told us of sticks and Quaker oats!  They say that when the troops started with Sir Redvers Buller from Colenso each man had his bundle of sticks and a packet of Quaker oats fastened somewhere upon him.  His canteen was as black as coal, but that did not matter.  And if he had his sticks and his Quaker oats, and could manage to get a little ‘water’ that was not more than usually khaki-coloured, he was a happy man.  So as he marched along he was always on the look-out for sticks and water.  The two together furnished him with all things necessary:  the sticks soon made the water boil, and the Quaker oats made—­tea!

=The Men in Khaki.=

As regards dress he was a picture!  He started khaki-clad, and no one could tell one regiment from another, but he was only allowed to take the suit he wore to the front, and before long, what with marching and sandstorms and fighting, that suit became unrecognisable as a suit.  Bit by bit it went.  Tailors of the most amateur description plied their needles and thread upon it in vain.  It went! and Tommy’s distress occasionally knew no bounds.  We hear of one man who at last marched into Ladysmith with two coat sleeves but no coat; of another with not a bit of khaki about him, but garments of one sort and another ‘commandeered’ as he went along.  One of the facts that impressed them most as they marched into Ladysmith was that the garrison were clean and neatly dressed in khaki, but that they—­bearded, dirty, ragged—­looked rather the rescued than the rescuers!

Mr. Lowry tells how when at last he determined to have his khaki suit washed, and retired to his tent to wait the arrival of his clothes from the amateur laundry on the banks of the Modder, it seemed as though they would never come, and he was fearful lest the order to advance should arrive before his one suit returned from the wash!

But through it all our men kept cheerful.  One Christian man who had earned among his comrades the nickname of ‘Smiler,’ and who was wounded, signs himself, ‘Still smiling, with a hole in my back.’  And this was typical of all.  During that dreadful march to overtake Cronje, the officers of the Guards had as their mess-table on one occasion a rectangular ditch about eighteen inches wide and as many deep.  It was dug so as to enclose an oblong piece of ground about sixteen feet by eight, which, flattened as much as possible, served as table.  At this earth table, with their feet in the muddy ditch, sat several representatives of England’s nobility, but as our soldier lad said, ‘Still smiling.’  When the rain came down and deluged both officers and men, and sleep was impossible, tentless on the veldt and seated in the mud, the men hour after hour sang defiance to the storm.

How kind they were to one another!  How brave to save a fallen comrade or officer!  One of our chaplains relates that in the advance to Ladysmith an officer was struck down and could not be moved.  When the regiment retired, and his men knew their officer would have to stay there during the night, four of them elected to remain, and one of them lay at his head, another at his feet, and one on each side to shield him from the Boer bullets which were flying around.