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Updated: June 18, 2025
They are dressed in the long Cossack coats of dark cloth peculiar to the inhabitants of the Caucasus; two rows of bone or metal cartridge-cases adorn their breast, being fitted into flutes or pockets made for them; they wear either top boots or top bootlegs, and the counterpart of my own moccasins; and their headdress is a tall black lamb's-wool turban, similar to the national headgear of the Persians.
It plays no great part in this story, except that it was the cause of my obtaining a glimpse of Peter's private correspondence. For, after the Captain had discharged his gun at a hedge and made a large rabbit-burrow in it, Peter proceeded to pick up the cartridge-cases, which lay thick as catkins. This interested me, as Peter already had a pocketful. "What do you want all those for, Major Peter?"
That evening the relieving force halted at the drift, and, after burying the dead, we spent some time examining the lairs of the Boer snipers, the men collecting bits of shell and cartridge-cases as mementoes only to be thrown away at once. We found some 25 dead and partially buried Boers, to whom we gave burial.
"Munition-ships?" cried Norwood; and then Schneider pointed to a news-dispatch, to the effect that the Lusitania had had on board a shipment of cartridge-cases. "A fine lot of munitions!" jeered the lawyer. Well, was the reply, what were cartridge-cases for, if not to kill Germans? The Germans had been attacked by the whole world, and they had to defend themselves.
Among the rocks lay blood-stained English helmets and Dutch hats; piles of English and Dutch cartridge-cases, often mixed together in places which both sides had occupied; scraps of biltong and leather belts; handkerchiefs, socks, pieces of letters, chiefly in Dutch; dropped ball cartridges of every model Lee-Metford, Mauser, Martini, and Austrian.
There are places in the Desert, men say, where even now you come across the dead of old battles, all as light as last year's wasps' nests, laid down in swaths or strung out in flight, with, here and there, the little sparkling lines of the emptied cartridge-cases that dropped them.
In front was a rail on which were spread riding-saddles, pack-saddles, hobbles, surcingles, pannikins, bridles, empty bags, and all manner of horse-gear; and roundabout were a litter of chips, an assortment of empty tins, bits of bullock-hide, empty cartridge-cases, and the bare skulls of three or four bullocks, with neat bullet-holes between the eyes.
They fought through the clear cool day, and Bobby felt a little thrill run down his spine when he heard the tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of the empty cartridge-cases hopping from the breech-blocks after the roar of the volleys; for he knew that he should live to hear that sound in action.
Amongst the household utensils, the arms, and the various objects brought away by Captain Carlsen, we may mention two copper cooking-pans, some goblets, gun-barrels, augers and chisels, a pair of boots, nineteen cartridge-cases, of which some were still filled with powder, the clock, a flute, some locks and padlocks, twenty-six pewter candlesticks, some fragments of engravings, and three books in Dutch, one of which, the last edition of Mendoza's "History of China" shows the goal which Barentz sought in this expedition, and a "Manual of Navigation" proves the care taken by the pilot to keep himself well up in all professional matters.
Every thing went against him. Every answer he made sounded like a confession. A crime had been committed at Valpinson; he had been seen going there and coming back by side paths. A fire had been kindled; his hands bore traces of charcoal. Shots had been fired; they found one of his cartridge-cases close to the spot where Count Claudieuse had been wounded. There it was I saw the plot.
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