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The Normans boarded their train, tumbling clumsily one into another over the dirty, evil-smelling floors of the cattle-trucks. Striking of matches and smoking were forbidden ... a babel of confusion and curses ensued while they sorted themselves out.
The men wore posies in their kepis. In white chalk they had scrawled legends upon the cattle-trucks in which they travelled. "A mort Guillaume!" "Vive la Gloire!" "Les Francais ne se rendent jamais!" Many of them had fought at Longwy and along the heights of the Vosges. The youngest of them had bristling beards.
The four miles, over heavy, dirty roads, were covered in fair time, though many of the men became very exhausted, and at the end of the march I found myself carrying four rifles, while other officers carried packs in addition to their own kit. The train was composed of the usual hopeless-looking Russian cattle-trucks for the men, with tiers of planks for resting and sleeping on.
We reach Red Deer by half-past nine, and see from afar the great herd of cattle, standing lumped together, while the young men, including our silent friend, Edmund, sit motionless as statues on ponies surrounding them. As we get nearer we see kraals, or enclosures, close to the railway line, and on a siding some empty cattle-trucks ready.
Recent experiments have shown the practicability of conveying elephants by rail in ordinary open cattle-trucks; they were indifferent to the motion, noises, or bridges; it is said that 32 elephants could be thus carried on one train.
Now, alas! crowded cattle-trucks on the railway are fast superseding the old-fashioned, wholesome way of travelling, and we seldom have the autumnal air filled with the lowing of the herds, the barking of the attendant dogs and the shouts of the drovers on their sturdy Welsh ponies.
In the meantime, as the daily papers received fuller details, harrowing accounts came to hand of the exodus from Johannesburg of men, women, and children travelling twenty in a compartment meant for eight, while others, not so fortunate, had to put up with cattle-trucks. The Boers were said to have shown themselves humane and magnanimous. Mr.
"If one Frenchman is equal to three and one-third horses, how many Huns are equal to one British soldier?" "They are never equal to him," said the subaltern brightly. "If it wasn't for machinery we'd have crumpled them up long ago." "True, my son," said the Major, "and well spoken." The men were grouped round the cattle-trucks, each man with his kit and 120 rounds of ammunition.
We stumbled along between the rails and over the sleepers, led by the Major, who carried a hurricane lamp, and by the help of its fitful rays we leapt across the pools of water left in every hollow. We passed some cattle-trucks. The Major held up the lamp and scrutinised a legend in white letters Hommes 40. Chevaux 12. "Reminds me of the Rule of Three," said the Major meditatively.
The command to "fall in" dropped the curtain. In the grey of dusk the shadowy column marched into Leulene. The Ten Hundred, after an eleven days' "rest" in the icy grip of a winter's wind that clung to Leulene unabating throughout the period, marched away and entrained upon their first portion of journey front-linewards. Cattle-trucks provide ample novelty, aroma and draughts.
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