There was nothing that man could do: until such time as the natural drainage of the plain and the parched substratum absorbed the superfluous moisture, the brigade was as helpless as a steamer with a broken screw-shaft. Mercifully for the staff, the catastrophe had overtaken the brigade within a mile of a fair-sized farm; and eventually, after much labour in the mire, the brigadier and his immediate following were able to claim its hospitality. Luckily it was occupied. A smiling good-natured _frau_, on the stout side of thirty, with a bevy of girls ranging from two to twelve, was endeavouring to cope with an inundation of sodden troopers from the advance-guard. It was a nice farm, and to our astonishment Madam Embonpoint proved to be an English Africander. Her husband was in St Helena, and since the outbreak of war she had worked her husband's property single-handed. Madam was anything but hostile; but she prayed that we would not break into her slender store of provisions, since she had ten mouths to feed, and the pinch of war was near at hand. Otherwise we were welcome to such hospitality as her roof would afford us, and she was prepared to cook and prepare for us any food we might have with us. It chanced that the officer of the advance-guard was a captain of the Mount Nelson Light Horse. He was one of the few in that corps who had impressed himself favourably upon the brigadier, consequently the chief did not burst into abusive satire when he discovered this officer in the act of boiling a turkey in the farm kitchen. Now, in spite of the wet and disappointment, the brigadier had lost none of his usual gaiety of nature. It is often the case with the best soldiers, the more adverse the circumstances the lighter their spirits. _Brigadier_ (_commencing to divest himself of his wet clothes in front of the fire and pointing to the turkey_), "Honestly come by?" _Captain_ (_closing the lid of the pot with a snap_), "Yes, sir; the last of our tinned food, sir!" _B._ "Seen the tin for the first time to-day, I should think. But what are you going to do with it? You have got to clear your robbers out of this. This is my booth for the night!" _C._ "I realised that, sir, and I said to my subaltern that as it was a cold night we would just open our last tin and offer it to the general as a sign of affection, arguing that if he accepted it in the spirit in which it was given, he would ask us both to dinner." _B._ (_now in his shirt_), "Hearty fellows both. No man born of woman would like a boiled turkey for dinner more than I should, in spite of the fact that it was only killed an hour ago by a captain who should have known better. You are both asked to dinner. Madam, had you not better withdraw?" (_This to the lady of the house who had just entered._)