The New Zealanders gave a sing-song that night, the visitors sitting or standing round a huge log fire and the performers occupying the centre. It was an excellent show, several very good men taking the boards, or rather the veldt. The _finale_ was a march round by some of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders with pipes and drums playing. Our entertainers, I must not forget to mention, supplied the crowd liberally with rum, a much-appreciated drink among Tommies and Volunteers alike. Mixed with sugar and water and taken hot it is hard to beat, and has kept off many a fever, I am sure, in wet weather. I may mention that rum was only rationed out very occasionally, except in extremely bad weather, when we generally got it daily. Rum nights, needless to say, were hailed with delight, and shouts of ‘Roll up for your rum’ would be heard all round the camp.
NIGHT IN CAMP (_From a sketch by J.S. Cowen_) ]
Here the sequence of events may be appropriately interrupted for the sake of some amusing incidents and anecdotes told by another correspondent, who, in connection with this great gathering of troops in our camp near Commando Nek, writes:
After considerable practice the amateur cooks could make a savoury repast out of very little. If there was a garden about we grubbed up some vegetables, with which even the trek-ox served out in Government rations made an excellent stew. It was our fortune this night, however, to be better provided for by a lucky chance. While engaged in drawing the meagre rations and arguing with the Quartermaster-Sergeant over details of ounces and pennyweights, that had come to be regarded by us as very important matters, we suddenly espied a great scurry going on about a mile away, crowds of men rushing after what we at last made out to be a small deer. In and out it went among patrol tents, horses, saddles, carts, and guns. Frantic efforts were made in vain to catch it; men left whatever they were doing to join in the chase, rolling over in their endeavours to be first. Everybody threw something, and many dangerous missiles came hurtling through the air. But the deer ran on and suddenly turned our way. We also missed it by yards, and the shouting crowd swept by, losing sight of their quarry presently, and not knowing whither it had gone. A man of ours happened to be lying rolled up in his blanket asleep. The din roused him, and just as he was beginning to move the buck rose for a leap over his body. He caught it in the outspread blanket and kept it there. So the game came to our mess after all by sheer luck. On the strength of it we invited our very good friends and next-door neighbours, the Bushmen (Queensland Mounted Infantry) to dine with us that night, and soon after sunset they came round to our fire. Very good fellows they were, and a very genial dinner we had. Our guests brought their own stew, which was excellent, and their coffee too, with which to eke out our supplies. One of our men produced some good cheroots afterwards, and we sat on into the night, smoking, sipping coffee, and telling stories, the hills all around being lighted up with lines of veldt fires and the sky illuminated by a glorious full moon. Some of the Bushmen’s stories against themselves were most amusing. They had as good a name as anybody for horse-stealing and cattle-lifting. One of them told us gravely that when he was walking one day through another regiment’s lines a sergeant spotted him and gave the order ‘Stand to your horses.’ He said he was so overcome by the ‘compliment,’ that he could hardly acknowledge it. On another occasion, at a midday halt, when the ‘cow-gun’ teams were brought back from watering, the distracted officer in charge found one of the fattest and best oxen was missing. He only just discovered it in time to save its life and deprive the Bushmen of a feast. They told us many tricks for changing a horse’s marks, brands, colour, and general appearance, so that no man might know his own horse thus transformed, and I looked anxiously towards my own chestnut quite expecting to find that he had either been taken away to the camp of our neighbours or ‘faked’ practically before my own eyes. Others joined our circle as the moon rose higher. The whole camp seemed in excellent spirits. Sounds of revelry, wafted on the still night air, reached us from many a camp-fire; snatches of song, broken anon by outbursts of cheering; elsewhere uprose the strains of the Highland pipes. Rumour is busy that we are to join in the chase after De Wet, who is breaking away north. We wonder as we roll into our blankets when will be our next day of rest.