War's Brighter Side Part 18

Therefore when Lord Stanley came he was certain to find us merry and voluble and prankish. He may have imagined that we must perforce be grave--we to whom was given the high and almost religious right to speak for an empire and an army, and to conduct a British organ in so delicate a situation as was ours among the Boers--neither offending them nor giving them a chance to find a flaw in the practice of our principles. Grave enough was that part of our work which we meant to be so.

Serious in its strain upon us and important in its effort to rest and inform and recreate the soldiers, was most of what we did. But it is a habit of the journalist's mind and a result of his work that he shall be or become a philosopher, viewing the world as it is, no matter how differently he may present it to a duller and more conservative public.

Therefore Lord Stanley found us declaiming soldier poetry, writing nonsense verses, drawing caricatures of one another, telling stories, behaving like men without a care on their minds. We realised that he must be shocked at us--and we voted that he behaved very well under the circ.u.mstances. He usually came in with a quick step and an air of business. We delayed him with chaff which he seemed always at a loss to understand at first. He got at our bundles of proof-sheets and he applied himself to them most gravely. By and by he began to catch the contagion of our spirits, his eye wandered from the sheets, he wavered--he began to join in our talk. "Is there anything else--or anything you are in doubt about?" he would ask. He believed us when we answered him, for he knew that we understood what not to publish. In that mutual trust and confidence there grew up a relation between us and himself which was dearly prized by us, and which we hope he esteemed as highly.

Once he told us that there had been complaint of a mock-speech by the German Emperor which some one had written among a lot of pretended cablegrams avowedly fanciful. Once he declined to publish a mild attack of mine upon Mr. Winston S. Churchill for finding fault with our army chaplains. At another time, upon the ground of prudence, he threw out an article upon our treasonous colonists which we copied from an Afrikander exchange. Apart from these slight exercises of his power he pa.s.sed all our work, though it was as big in bulk as the "Newcomes" and "Vanity Fair" rolled together--300,000 words--ten columns a day for nearly thirty days!

I have called the censor's office a "hole in a wall," but our _sanctum_ was not half as neat or presentable. Whoever has carried the collecting mania into the study of country newspaper offices has noticed how one never differs from another. The greasy smell of printer's ink, the distempered walls stuck over here and there with placards and the imprint of inky fingers, the gaping fireplace, the bare, littered floor, the table all cut on top and chipped at the edges, the bottomless chairs with varying degrees of further dismemberment, the "clank--clank" of the press in the next room--these are the proofs positive of genuine country newspaper offices the world around--from Simla to Bismarck, Dakota, and back again. And the office of THE FRIEND was like all the rest.

THE FRIEND.

(_Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force._)

BLOEMFONTEIN, MONDAY, MARCH 26, 1900.

FABLES FOR THE STAFF.[5]

[Footnote 5: Copyrighted in England and America. Used here with the author's permission.]

THE ELEPHANT AND THE LARK'S NEST.

BY RUDYARD KIPLING.

II.

A discriminating Boer, having laid a Nestfull of valuable and informing Eggs, fled across the Horizon under pressure of necessity, leaving his Nest in a secluded Spot, where it was discovered by a Disinterested Observer who reported the same to an Intelligence Officer. The Latter arriving at his Leisure with a great Pomposity said: "See me hatch!" and sitting down without reserve converted the entire Output into an unnecessary Omelette.

After the Mess was removed, the Disinterested Observer observed: "Had you approached this matter in another spirit you might have obtained Valuable Information."

"That," replied the Intelligence Officer, "shows your narrow-minded Prejudice. Besides I am morally certain that those Eggs come out of a Mare's Nest."

"It is now too late to inquire," said the Disinterested Observer, "and that is a pity."

"But am I not an Intelligence Officer?" said the Intelligence Officer.

"Of that there can be no two opinions," said the Disinterested Observer. Whereupon he was sent down.

MORAL. _Do not teach the Intelligence to suck Eggs._

KOPJE-BOOK MAXIMS.[6]

[Footnote 6: Copyrighted in England and America, and used here by permission.]

BY RUDYARD KIPLING.

(_With suggestive help from Perceval Landon._)

HORSE.

Two Horses will shift a Camp if they be dead enough.

Forage is Victory; Lyddite is Gas.

Look before you Lope.

When in doubt Flank; when in force Outflank.

FOOT.

Take care of the towns and the Tents will take care of themselves.

Spare the Solitary Horseman on the sky-line; he is bound to be a Britisher.

Abandoned Women and Abandoned Kopjes are best left alone.

Raise your hat to the Boer--and you'll get shot.

GUNS.

The Dead Gunner laughed at the Pom-pom.

"I Bet I killed 'Eighty,'" roared the 47.

"I have buried my three," snapped the Lee-Metford.

"It is well to keep your hair on; it is Better to take out your Tompion."

A sh.e.l.l on the Rand is worth ten on the veldt.

There are ninety and nine roads to Stellenbosch, but only two to Pretoria. Take the other.

(_Kopjeright in all armies and standing camps._)

MISS UITLANDER REPLIES TO MISS BLOEMFONTEIN.

DEAR MADEMOISELLE,--I pray that you will excuse me for venturing to set you right upon one or two matters which I noticed in your reply to Mr. Ralph. Miss Uitlander did, indeed, with joy and pride, trip out to meet Mr. Englishman, though, as a matter of fact, she is as much Miss Bloemfontein as yourself. In reality, your correct name is Miss Free-Stater. But that is a trifle which may pa.s.s. The "loving hand"

you boast of having extended to us has long since been covered by an iron glove, the weight of which we have daily been made to feel, and to that you must a.s.sociate the joyful flaunting of our colours in your face. His coming meant freedom--the sweetest thing in the world--to us. You called our brothers and sisters cowards as they fled your oppression and bitter and openly expressed hatred. You threw white feathers into the carriages as they pa.s.sed you by. You loudly bemoaned your fate as a woman and longed to don masculine garments to aid your beaux in exterminating the hated English. Could we remember a "loving hand" then?

You were quick to tell us that there would be no room for us to live beside you so soon as Mr. Englishman was driven back to the sea. "The hated English had never been wanted and would not be allowed to stay."