i6 
XAND & WATER 
March 8, i^fj 
would be to ask an officer under arrest about his future. 
It was a case of Omne ignotum fro niagnifico which, you. 
may remember, in the revised version means, ' If a 
man's conduct sheet is lost, his character is exemplary.' 
'"Can you ride?' said the sergeant. 'I can that,' 
said the Yank. ' Oh you can, can you ? ' said the 
sergeant. ' Very well, let's see you put that mare through 
her paces.' 
" The mare was a stiff proposition, too stiff for most 
of us, and Trelawney's Horse gathered round expecting 
to see some fun. So did the marc, I fancy, for the moment 
the Yank got on her back she started bucking for all 
she was worth. She reared. and plunged, and, lindmg 
that no use, tried to bolt. She had a mouth of iron. Well, 
to cut a long story short, in half an hour that mare was 
like clay in the hands of the potter. She was all of a lather 
and butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. After that 
Trelawney's, who knew a good horseman when they saw 
one, all crowded round the Yank and offered him smokes 
and drinks. 
" ' I don't smoke and I don't drink,' he said. ' Well, 
what the hell do you do ? ' said one of 'em. ' I ride,' he 
said quietly and walked away. 
" I liked that chap, and when I heard that he knelt 
down and said his prayers c\Try night in the tent — and 
there were six men to every tent — I liked him all the 
more. I wanted a batman and one day I offered ' Hop ' 
—his name was Silas P. Hopkins, but we called him 
' Hop ' for short— the job. He hesitated at first, which 
rather nettled me, the more so as it meant he'd draw 
five bob a week extra pay. 
" ' Well if you don't hke being in my service . . .' 
I began. ' It isn't that, sir,' he said— he always said 
' Sir, ' and generally saluted, which was more than most 
of 'em did— 'Well, I'll take it on.' 
"And he did. 
" I soon found I'd done a good stroke of business. Never 
man batted like that batman. For one thing he used to 
think, which, you may have noticed, no batman ever does 
as a rule. I never found a hole in my socks, for the simple 
reason that Hop always discovered it before I could darn 
it. I never lost a shirt button, because as soon as it got 
loose Hop sewed it on tight again. And you must remem- 
ber that the Boer war wasn't like this war, when if you're 
' deficient in articles ' you can send a chit to your 
hosiers or your tailors in the West End and get your 
order executed and the goods delivered in France inside 
of a week. No ! we were up country, far from railhead, 
with our lines of communication constantly being cut, 
and oiu: supply columns looted by brother Boer, some of 
whose commandoes hadn't one whole pair of trousers 
between them. So they always raided our columns, if 
they could, vv-henever they wanted a change of under- 
clothing, and we often went short. I remember a picnic 
outside Pretoria— but I'll tell you that another time. 
Well the result was that Trelawney's Horse were eventually 
rigged out like a fancy-dress ball, and were decollete 
enough to satisfy the producer of a theatrical rcvuc. But 
I myself never wanted for anything — shirts, socks, and 
so on — Hop saw to all that. I never asked any questions 
— as I half suspected he pinched 'em, and I didn't want 
to be c.-m.'d as a receiver of stolen goods, ' knowing them 
to have been stolen,' as the charge sheet puts it. All I 
knew was that my kit was like the widow's cruse of oil — 
there was always petrol in the tank. 
" Then he was as punctual as zero. He always called 
me to the second, and while I was spongeing myself down 
in my collapsible tub he'd be busy about the tent laying 
out my shaving kit, and shaking the sand ^nd locusts 
out of my things, until he'd say ' Anything else, sir.?,' . 
" But there was never anything else — he'd always seen 
to that. As you may imagine, the fame of my batman 
got noised abroad for, like the virtuous woman, liis price 
was far above rubies. Every brother officer wanted .him, 
and some of 'em tried to bribe him into their service 
until, getting wind of their fraternal designs, I told him 
I proposed to double the five bob. He wouldn't take it. 
' I'm quite satisfied, sir,' he said. 
" Naturally, we got rather friendly, and I got to treat 
him more and more as a warrant otiicui" than an ordinary 
trooper, and sometimes I tried to get him to talk about 
himself. But he always headed me off. All I could learn 
was that his father was a big mule contracior in Texas, 
and that he'd been sent over from New Orleans with a 
cargo of mules ta Durban and, after unloading, had 
thought he'd lik« ta go up-country. He always rather 
kept himself to himself. 
" He was certainly a wonderful chap with horses. You 
know what delicate beasts Argentines are ; well, he 
cured mine of a bad attack of sand colic and he was as 
particular about preparing my horse's bran-mash as he 
was about my breakfast— which is saying a good deal. 
And no coolie or black-boy or up-country Jew storekeeper 
could ever take a rise out of him — he used to do all my 
shoj^ping. Well, one day we were in for a great Boer 
drive near Hartebeestefontein, the whole squadron 
being strung out like a paper-chase. We'd crossed a 
drift and had come out on some flat country all pimpled 
with ant-hills, when we sighted a Boer farm and the 
usual kraals in the middle of some blue gum trees. The 
next moment I heard the ' plip-plop ' of a Mauser, and 
my batman, who was next me, suddenly gave a kind of 
shriek and I saw him fall o\er his horse's neck like a sack. 
We soon rushed the farm and cleared it out, and I then 
turned my attention to my batman. Fortunately, the 
horse hadn't bolted and let me come up to him. I 
caught hold of his rider in my arms and laid him on the 
ground. He was a very light weight and rather slender. 
By that time he had fainted. There was a dark stain on 
his tunic, the colour of port-wine ; he'd been hit in the 
chest. I unbuttoned his shirt, and as I did so I noticed 
two little bright rods of steel stuck through it. I wondered 
what the devil they were for. Then I cut away his singlet 
— and — you could have knocked me over with a feather. 
My batman was a woman ! 
" So that's how I was kept in new socks ! " was the 
first thing I said to myself as I looked at the knitting- 
needles. And I kept on saying ' Plain and purl ! Purl 
and plain ! ' As you know one generally does say some- 
thing idiotically trivial like that when one gets a big shock. 
I suppose it's nature's way of keeping one going until 
one's mind recovers its balance. Perhaps you'll think 
I ought not to have been so surprised, and you may think 
me an ass. But telling a story's one thing, living it is 
quite another, and the story I'm telling you was spread 
over many months, in the course of which I had many other 
things than Hop to think about. 
" Well, my first thought was how to get him — I mean 
her — away, and my second how to keep her secret, for 
my sake as well as hers. I should never haVc 
heard the end of it in the regiment if it had got about. 
Of course I couldn't leave my troop, but after much trouble 
I got hold of a Cape cart and got Hop fixed \\\> in it and 
sent back one of my men whom I could trust as escort, 
giving him a confidential chit to the M.O. in which I 
explained matters and asked him to do all he could for 
the poor girl. 
" By the time that I had completed these arrange- 
ments she had recovered consciousness and told me some- 
thing of her story. It seems she had been brought up on 
her father's ranch, and when her brother fell sick and ^ 
couldn't take charge of the consignment of mules she \ 
offered to go in his place disguised as a teamster — and 
went. We hadn't much time for a pow-wow, and when 
she'd finished telling her story it was time for me to get 
a move on. -"Good-bye, Hop . . . and Cod bless 
you,' I said. ' My name's Lucy,' she said witii a look 
i 've never forgotten. I sometimes think — but no matter. 
And it was only when that cart had disappeared over 
the veldt like a ship at sea that I suddenly remembered 
I'd forgotten to ask her her surname — and her home 
address. And I never got to know it. By the time we 
■got back from our drive of the Boers and I was able I 
to communicate with the Base, I found she'd been 
evacuated and sent back to the States. I tried hard to 
trace her but it was a wash-out. But once a year, on the 
anniversary of the day she entered my service, I got a 
card without any addressand only two words on it ' From 
Lucy.' That happened every year until two years ago— - 
I have heard nothing since. I sometimes think . . ." 
The Major stopped abruptly and gazed straight in 
front of him at the wind-screen. There was something 
almost wistful in his look. 
I'he subaltern broke, the silence. " Women are 
topping," hs said. 
Neither the Major nor I made any reply. The subaltern 
is very young, and, as is the way of yputli, he sometimes 
thinks his discoveries are new. 
