When they had eaten they picked up the pony's
bridle from the dust and melted into the moonlight with a wave of the
hand and a "good luck to you." There were no bugles to sound "boots
and saddles" for them, no sergeants to keep them in hand, no officers
to pay for their rations and issue orders.
Each was his own officer, his conscience was his bugle-call, he gave
himself orders. They were all equal, all friends; the cowboy and the
Russian Prince, the French socialist from La Villette or Montmartre,
with a red sash around his velveteen breeches, and the little French
nobleman from the Cercle Royal who had never before felt the sun,
except when he had played lawn tennis on the Isle de Puteaux. Each
had his bandolier and rifle; each was minding his own business, which
was the business of all - to try and save the independence of a free
people.
The presence of these foreigners, with rifle in hand, showed the
sentiment and sympathies of the countries from which they came.
These men were Europe's real ambassadors to the Republic of the
Transvaal. The hundreds of thousands of their countrymen who had
remained at home held toward the Boer the same feelings, but they
were not so strongly moved; not so strongly as to feel that they must
go abroad to fight.
These foreigners were not the exception in opinion, they were only
exceptionally adventurous, exceptionally liberty-loving. They were
not soldiers of fortune, for the soldier of fortune fights for gain.
These men receive no pay, no emolument, no reward. They were the few
who dared do what the majority of their countrymen in Europe thought.
At Jones's Hotel that night, at Ventersburg, it was as though a jury
composed of men from all of Europe and the United States had gathered
in judgment on the British nation.
Outside in the moonlight in the dusty road two bearded burghers had
halted me to ask the way to the house of the commandant. Between
them on a Boer pony sat a man, erect, slim-waisted, with well-set
shoulders and chin in air, one hand holding the reins high, the other
with knuckles down resting on his hip. The Boer pony he rode, nor
the moonlight, nor the veldt behind him, could disguise his seat and
pose. It was as though I had been suddenly thrown back into London
and was passing the cuirassed, gauntleted guardsman, motionless on
his black charger in the sentry gate in Whitehall. Only now, instead
of a steel breastplate, he shivered through his thin khaki, and
instead of the high boots, his legs were wrapped in twisted putties.
"When did they take you?" I asked.
"Early this morning.
