Guards had not been in the country more than ten days, yet there was barely a helmet to be seen amongst them. Substitutes had been found somewhere. The more worn and disreputable the substitute the happier the owner, despite the fact that all his past glories centred round a shining helmet or jaunty lancer cap, irresistible in plume and polish. But it was a great spectacle to see the survival of the fittest squadrons of the Scarlet Lancers filing past. There are half a dozen Cavalry Regiments against whom no one could throw a stone--the 9th and 16th Lancers are of these. But it would be invidious to particularise too much. "Who the h--ll are these fellows?--are they tame Boers?" chirped a subaltern from the 20th, who for the day was galloper to the brigadier. A bearded ruffian, whose only costume was a flannel shirt and a pair of seedy check trousers, but whose eye was as keen as a hawk's, and whose shining "matchlock" had seventeen notches[24] along its stock, caught the subaltern's query. "Yuss," came the answer, "we are tame Boers, the very tamest. My pal 'ere is President Kroojer, this 'ere's Botter, and hi am De--e--Wet!" Cheery fellows; after fifteen months of war there was little about self-preservation that you could have taught them. Lean, sinewy, and bearded kind--they represented the English fighting man at his best. And well might the inexperienced have asked if they were Boers. Lance and pennon were gone. Barely a tunic or regimental button remained to the two squadrons. Their collective headgear would have disgraced a Kaffir location, and their boots were mostly the raw-hide imitations of the country. But they were men. Rags and dirt could not conceal that fact. Theirs was not the dirt of sloth and sluggard. The essentials were bright and clean. There was not a man of the 150 attempting to represent two service squadrons who had not at some period balanced his life against his proficiency with the rifle, and who had not realised that on service his firelock was the soldier's best and staunchest friend. Nor were the officers easy to distinguish from the men. A shade cleaner, perhaps; but they, too, were rough-bearded, hard bitten by long exposure and responsibility. How different from the exquisites of popular fancy! Gone the beauties of effeminate adornment. Gone the studied insolence of puppyhood--that arrogance of bearing traditional with the British officer in times of peace. These were the men who had been eyes and ears to French's magnificent cavalry, who had ridden unflinchingly to the relief of Kimberley, who had more than held their own against fearsome odds at Diamond Hill. Did you hear that boy give an order? It was a man who spoke, and a man of resolution and understanding, yet judged by a standard in years he should still be a Sandhurst cadet.