CAMPAIGNING IN GERMAN SOUTH-WEST AFRICA

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2431, 9 April 1915, Page 6

CAMPAIGNING IN GERMAN SOUTH-WEST AFRICA

MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS

THE LUXURY OF WATER

A member of fclio Volunteer Company of the Transvaal Scottish—who were at the date of writing on their way from Luderitzbucht to Windhoek—in a letter to a relative in Surrey, tells of the acute discomforts which our soldiers are contending witli in that part of the world: He saj's: —

We are having a slack time of it just sow during the day, the reason being that it is not possible to do anything but lie on your back under shelter of the tent while the perspiration pours from every pore in your body. None but the most urgent work is done between sun up and sun down, and orders have it that any man seen outside his tent without a helmet or felt hat and shirt on "will be severelv dealt with." The thermometer was 123 in the tents yesterday. Wo have handkerchiefs, or any material that comes to hand, from a bit of shirt to a gun rag, tied to tlio back of our hats as protection. Helios and Aeroplanes. Distances are great in this country, which must account for delays in getting the enemy properly dealt with. One of our songs, in fact, is "It's a long, long way to Windhoek, but my heart's right there." In 13J hours we made one march of 35 miles—looked upon as a feat—and we were all thoroughly exhausted after it. It is extremely difficult to gauge distances heve. When we marched to our present camp, knowing that we were to stop at a place with a high-sounding name, we naturally thought we were going to the foot of this hill, which we had been marching on for an hour or so previously, and you can imagine our surprise when we |-did stop and make our camp, when we were told that that hill was still 17J miles away and was a Gar man observation post I —from which wo watch thom lielo-ing every morning. The enemy's aeroplanes hovering over our camps form a diversion and much amusement. It is interesting to watch the shells bursting in the air round, about them. Whatever may be doing on theso occasions the order "Scatter" is immediate* ly given. We therefore do so, and lie prone on the "round, imagining that the airman is making a dead aim with his bomb for your particular body. A thing dropping from a height is apt to look as if it is coming straight for you wherever you may be. Water a Luxury. The supply of water and rations is a science when having to provision troops in a country like this. We are dependent on the arrival of water from the base every day (and in the enemy's country, too)! A man may get seven days' detention for taking a cup of water from the water-cart when (the guard may happen to be looking the other way. Coming back the other morning from some work on some Frenches in the heat of the day, a party of us in F Company met a "kiltie" carrying a pail of water. It happened to be half-condensed water intended for the mules, but that did not matter. The man with the bucket in weakness allowed one man to have a drink. That was enough for the rest I Every man of the party, including yours truly, dashed in a rush and scramble to get his mouth on to the lip of the tin pail. One man was hustling the next man to get there before the water was finished—it would have made a good photo. There was a rim of mouths hanging on to the pail, and consequently no one could tip the bucket to get at the water, and everyone with the grip of his mouth on the tin was trying to persuade the'next man that that man had better release his mouth hold until he had finished 1 "Comforts." All the things everyone sends me are just the things one really wantß. It is wonderful (to the point of amusement) how splendidly you people at home seem to be up in the question of soldiers', comforts. Tommies' needs are much the same, I suppose, all over the world, and the European war seems to have brought the supply of comforts to a high science. But really, I was nonplussed when I opened your letter with the veil and scissors. I simply said to the man who is my messmate : "Look, isn't that wonderful?" Because he had rushed round the one or two shops in Luderitzbucht with me trying to buy a veil, and a black one—each. But we couldn't get one at all. We got marching orders immediately afterwards, so we never succeeded in getting one. . No notice is ever given us of coming movements. We may have been in one place long enough to marvel at the continued existence on the map of such a hopelessly impossible place, when comes the order as we turn in for the night: "Reveille 3 a.m. tomorrow; full-kit marching order; two days' rations; march off at 4.30 a.m." So it was with the effort to get a veil. The messmate and I wished we had had more time to look round before leaving for the interior.

I cat stow, mealie porridge, tea, coffee, etc., out of the next man's dixie (unwashed with anything but camp sand for weeks), drink half-condensed "horse" water out of a dirty pail ,sleep and live day and night for a month, and move in tho same shirt and Shorts (and in this heat and dust), have washed in. Luderitzbucht (when we did wash) in a short trough of-water, which 100 men ; shared! —and so on. But we remind'ourselves continually: "We are on active service," arid say, either when there is something objectionable to do or when we receive some really jolly nice "home comfort": "Who wouldn't bs a soldier?"