[Illustration: Gathering the dead after the battle of Diamond Hill.]
When rightly led, there is no braver soldier on earth than the “gentleman in khaki” who goes out to do his Sovereign’s bidding in every part of the world. He is the finest specimen of the sturdy soldier known in Europe. He is not unlike the American soldier, except in the standard of education and self-reliance. He is the same happy, careless, and kind-hearted man, who will fight an enemy all day, and, when he has been defeated, feed him out of his own scanty store of rations. The British soldier does not often become intoxicated; but when he does chance to take too much, he is apt to be affected with a bit more of dignity, or with an exaggerated straightness; he is rarely quarrelsome.
The British soldier in the field is by far more attentive to his personal and military appearance than is the American soldier when on a hard campaign. All the men in South Africa wore their heavy cross-belts and pouches when, had they been our men, it is quite likely they would have been lost, for they were of no great importance to the comfort of the soldier. The Britisher keeps well shaven at all times in the field, and, although he is burned as only an African sun can burn, he looks well groomed. It does not seem to be compulsory to shave, as some of the men are whiskered, but the large majority of the men keep their faces free from a beard. Naturally, however, their uniforms get very dirty, especially as they do not have any shelter tents to protect them from the rain, and frequently the regiments on the march look as though they were uniformed in black or a dark brown.
One thing in which the British soldiers are far behind the American is in ordinary entrenching work in the field; they do not seem to understand the first principles of construction of trenches, either temporary or permanent. The sappers or engineers are, of course, proficient in the work, but the ordinary infantrymen or cavalrymen do not go at the work with the same intelligence that the Americans display. This is not because they lack the intelligence, but because they have never been trained for that obviously necessary work, always having been taught to rely upon the engineer corps. Nearly all the men carry an entrenching tool, but they have not had the necessary practice and instruction in its use to make it a useful implement in their hands. The American soldiers can do more and better work in protecting themselves in a temporary trench with the top of a mess tin than the British soldiers can do with their special tools. This is not the fault of the British soldiers, but that of the officers who have neglected to train them in this most important self-protection in the field. Dr. Conan Doyle calls the infantry especially to account for their ignorance in digging trenches in the South African war, and says that the work they did were mere rabbit-scratchings in comparison with the work of the amateur soldiers opposed to them.