"At 4.30 or five 'Prepare for water' sounds. You put a bridoon on one horse, and, if you are luxurious, a blanket and surcingle to sit on, lead the other, and form up in a line; then 'file right' is the order, and you march off to the watering place, wearing any sort of costume you please. And very slight and _negligé_ some of them are. In the cool of the evening, this is a very pleasant three quarters of an hour. After watering comes the evening feed, followed by tea at six o'clock, and then the day's work is done."
The evenings in that climate are delicious; we could sit in our shirt-sleeves until any hour, without any perceptible chill in the air, playing cards, or smoking and talking, or reading by a lantern. Williams and I found picket a great resource; and many a good game of whist have I had sitting in a crowded quartette in our ramshackle battery Cape-cart, with an inch of candle guttering among the cards.
Most of us slept in the tents, but I preferred the open, even in dust-storms, when choosing a site required some skill. The composition of a bed was a question of sacks. There was one very large variety of chaff-sack, which was a sleeping-bag in itself; with this and your blanket and cloak, and under the lee of some forage or scrub, you could defy anything. The only peril was that of a loose horse walking on you.
On some afternoons we were quite free till the stable-hour at four. Till then we could bask in camp, or go for a bathe in the river, where there was one splendid deep-water pool, whence you could hear the baboons barking on the hill-sides, and see the supply trains for the front grinding heavily up the pass.
Rumours of a move never lost their charm. At first we used to take them seriously, but gradually the sense of permanence began to pervade our camp. Solid tin shelters rose for the guard and the sergeants; a substantial tin canteen was erected close to the lines by cynical provision-dealers. Those visionary rebels declined to show themselves; nobody attacked our precious pass; and, in short, we had to concentrate our minds upon the narrow circle of our daily life.
A recurring duty for drivers was that of "stableman." There were two of these for each sub-division, who were on duty for the whole day in the lines. Their function, in addition to the usual duties, was to draw forage, watch the horses, and prepare all the feeds in the nose-bags, ready for the drivers. The post was no sinecure, for in addition to the three standard oat feeds, there was oat straw to be put down after dinner, and, at eight o'clock at night, a final supper of chaff, except for invalids, who got special feeds. A list of these was given you generally at the last moment, and it was a test for your temper to go round the lines on a windy night, lighting many futile matches, in order to see the number on the off fore hoof, so as to hit off the right ones. There was generally a nose-bag missing at this stage, which was ultimately found on a C horse (my sub-division was D), and then there was a lively five minutes of polite recrimination. At 8.30 the nose-bags had to be taken off, and muzzles put on--canvas affairs with a leather bottom, strapped on by the head collar--as a preventive against disease from the chill morning air. Every man, after evening stables, was supposed to leave his muzzles on the jowl-piece of his horses, but a stableman was quite sure to find two missing, and then he would have to scour the tents, and drive the offender to the lines to repair his neglect; then he could go to bed. Another extra duty was that of picket at night, which came round to gunners and drivers alike, about every ten days. "Two hours on and four hours off" was the rule, as on all sentry-duty. I rarely found the night watches long. There was plenty to do in watching the horses, which are marvellously ingenious at untying knots, and in patrolling the camp on the look-out for imaginary rebels. By the way, the only live rebel I ever saw was the owner of a farm, near which we halted during one sultry dusty route-march. He refused to allow us to water our horses and ourselves at his pond, defying us with Lord Kitchener's proclamation enjoining "kind treatment" of the Dutch!