The poor fellow was really bad, and thought he was going out, and I should not have been surprised if he had. Soon a few more chums came in, somewhat beery, and commenced to buck him up. The great method apparently on such occasions is to grip the sufferer's hand very tightly, pull him about a good deal, punch him now and again, and tell him to bear up. "Stick it, mate! * * * it, you ain't going to * * * well die! Stick it, mate!" And there he lay, with his pals, fresh from the canteen, exhorting him to stick it, a poor broken Reserve man, with a wife and children across the seas. At last I went and, after no little bother, discovered an R.A.M.C. Sergeant, who found his Sergeant-Major, and the two came with me to our hut. The result was a mustard leaf, which was sent down to me to place on the sufferer. With this on the left side of his stomach, bugs biting, mosquitoes worrying, and comrades lurching in, singing and rowing, and beds collapsing, the night passed. The next day the doctor saw him, and he was returned to Wynberg.[11] [Footnote 11: I met him again looking much better and in the best of spirits on the _Aurania_, being invalided home.] In the afternoon we paraded and came on here. In the evening I slipped off to Cape Town and met a friend, with whom I dined at the "Grand." Having a decent dinner and amongst decently dressed people made me feel quite a Christian, though as a matter of fact, most of the diners appeared to be Jews. The sheenie man refugee is still very much in evidence, and though he sells things at ruinous prices (for himself, he says) seems to do well. Tuesday, March 6th. After being kept outside the doctor's bureau from 9 till 12.30, the great man, the controller of fates, the donor of tickets, the Maitland medicine man, has seen me, and, whatever he has done, has not marked me for home. ANOTHER ALBUM!! _March 9th._ To weary you with a further continuation of the experiences of a forlorn Yeoman, who, having drifted from Pretoria, now finds himself on the sands of Maitland, with a distant and tantalising view of the sea and its ships, seems an unworthy thing to do. But, alas! I have acquired a terrible habit of letter-writing. News or no news, given the opportunity, I religiously once a week contribute to the English mail bag; so here goes for a really short letter. On Thursday, having endured as much toothache as I deemed expedient without complaint, and goaded on by a sleepless night, I paraded before the doctor, and having borne with him moderately and half satisfied his credulity, obtained from him a note to a Cape Town dentist for the following day. I am now in that being's hands, he has considerately assured me that no man is a hero to his own dentist. In Cape Town there are two topics--the town guard and the plague, known as bubonic; owing to the latter, great is the stink of disinfectants.