The History of Lumsden's Horse: A Complete Record of the Corps from Its Formation to Its Disbandment
History
The History of Lumsden's Horse: A Complete Record of the Corps from Its Formation to Its Disbandment
Great Britain. Army. Lumsden's Horse; South African War, 1899-1902 -- Regimental histories -- Great Britain
On one of the usual patrols into that town Captain Rutherfoord passed
a German ambulance proceeding south, who explained that they had been
allowed to do so, but carried no pass. Arriving at Pretoria, he
reported the fact to the authorities, and also that he had stopped the
ambulance until he could get orders concerning it. On inquiry, having
ascertained that nothing was known about it, he obtained a letter to
the Commandant at Irene, who was told to ascertain that the ambulance
people were carrying no papers for the use of the enemy, and, if
satisfied, to allow them to proceed. The Commandant, being a man of
high ideals, did not see his way to thoroughly searching the
ambulance, which contained four German nurses, in addition to the four
doctors, and he therefore allowed them to pass on having taken the
senior doctor’s word of honour that they had with them nothing of any
use to the enemy in the way of papers. The ambulance then went on its
way, but stopped the night at Kalfontein, ten miles beyond Irene. In
the evening a wire came to us for an officer’s patrol to bring all
those people back to Pretoria. Captain Rutherfoord was accordingly
sent to Kalfontein for the purpose, and returned in the evening with
the party.
Colonel Lumsden and all of us felt so sorry for the prisoners that we
decided to ask them to dinner, which invitation being accepted, in due
course we all sat down together in our little mess-house.
During our stay at Irene, as it was bitterly cold, we had run up a
small hut: walls of piled-up stones, a tin roof, and a most cunningly
contrived fireplace which did not smoke. We decorated the place with
flowers, had a tip-top dinner, and drank _crème de menthe_ as our only
beverage. The dinner went off in the wonderful way dinners do. None of
us could talk German, and none of them English, and yet we conversed
freely and had the greatest fun. The show concluded with songs, and
the last remembrance I have of it was that the Colonel and the
prettiest ‘sister’ were taking down one another’s addresses and
betting gloves about something in the quietest corner. Rutherfoord had
been hiding as much as possible, as he felt himself to blame for being
the cause of all their trouble, but we gave him away at the end, and
though they all pretended to be very angry with him, we unanimously
allowed that he had beaten all but the Colonel in winning the favours
of the fair sex.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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