Methuen commands. We must be
about 8000 strong now, and are expecting almost hourly the order to
advance. Below us De Aar hums like a hive. From a deserted little
wayside junction, such as I knew it first, it has blossomed suddenly
into a huge depot of all kinds of stores, provisions, fodder,
ammunition, and all sorts of material for an important campaign. Trains
keep steaming up with more supplies or trucks crowded with khaki-clad
soldiers, or guns, khaki painted too, and the huge artillery horses that
the Colonials admire so prodigiously. Life is at high pressure. Men talk
sharp and quick, and come to the point at once. Foreheads are knit and
lips set with attention. Every one you see walks fast, or, if riding,
canters. There is no noise or confusion, but all is strenuous, rapid
preparation.
Do you know Colonials? In my eight months of mining life at Johannesburg
I got to know them well. England has not got the type. The Western
States of America have it. They are men brought up free of caste and
free of class. When you come among Colonials, forget your birth and
breeding, your ancestral acres and big income, and all those things
which carry such weight in England. No forelocks are pulled for them
here; they count for nothing. Are you wide-awake, sharp, and shrewd,
plucky; can you lead? Then go up higher. Are you less of these things?
Then go down lower.
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