I2 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
that I had had enteric fever, so I feasted on a special diet of eggs, 
chicken and stout, etc. At this I did not complain—but I was much 
too energetic to stand this lazy life for long. At last I protested to 
the medical board that I was fit and well, and demanded to-be 
discharged from hospital. They agreed to this but insisted that I 
should have three months’ sick leave before rejoining the regiment. 
A ‘free railway warrant to any place in the Union was granted, 
so I decided to go and stay with my brother on his farm up in 
the Rustenburg district, some twelve hundred miles to the north. 
My only means of getting from Rustenburg station to his farm—a 
distance of seventy-five miles—was by his ox-wagon which he 
sent to meet me. Twenty-five miles a day is good going by this 
means of transport, so I was three days on the road. At this stage 
I celebrated my nineteenth birthday and life was just beginning. 
I spent three glorious months living on the fat of the land and 
traveling round by ox-wagon visiting remote spots of interest along 
the Limpopo River. Although by then the big game had disap- 
peared from most of the Transvaal, a few herds of hartebeeste and 
a number of wild ostriches still existed in this inaccessible dis- 
trict. When my three months were up it was with mixed feelings 
that I made my departure. We had had a great time together and 
I think my brother did not relish the thought of being left on his 
own with only an occasional Boer farmer to chat to. On the day 
that I reached Rustenburg, in July, 1915, to report to the local 
commandant, news came through that the Germans had sur- 
rendered in South-West Africa. My return to Cape Town was 
stopped and two days later I was given my discharge. Being un- 
der an obligation to serve my company I had no alternative but 
to return immediately to the farm in the Waterberg. 
A few weeks later the military called for volunteers for overseas 
to form a regiment of heavy artillery. My brother wrote and told 
me that he had already volunteered, so I did likewise. We sailed 
for England and trained at Cooden in Sussex. Our guns were 
6-inch howitzers, and our particular battery—the 71st Siege Bat- 
tery—was made up of men recruited mostly from the Transvaal. 
We were the first South African regiment to arrive in England 
in the First World War and received a great welcome. 
Having passed our gunnery test at Lydd, near Dungeness, we 
