* * * * * "Could not one," suggested Aurelle on the return journey, "ask the advice of a competent man? Perhaps goats cannot stand sleeping out of doors in this damp climate, and perhaps also they are not being fed properly." The colonel frowned. "In the South African war," he said after a silence, "we used a large number of oxen for our transport. One day these damned oxen started dying by hundreds, and no one knew why. Great excitement at headquarters. Some general found an expert, who, after boring the whole army with his questions, ended by declaring that the oxen were cold. He had noticed the same sickness in the north of India. There they protected the beasts by making them wear special clothing. Any normal individual with common sense could see that the oxen were simply overworked. But the report followed its course, and arrived at general headquarters, and from there they wired to India for a few thousand rugs for cattle. "So far all went well, the oxen died as fast as ever, the well-paid expert had a damned good time—up to the arrival of the rugs. It is very easy to put clothing on an Indian cow who waits patiently with lowered head. But an African bullock—you try, and see what it’s like. After several trials, our drivers refused to do it. They sent for the expert and said to him, ’You asked for rugs for the beasts: here they are. Show us how to put them on.’ He was damned lucky to get out of hospital in six months." That same evening another pink telegram arrived from the Director of Commissariat: "Goats arrive at the front half dead pray take steps that these animals may have some wish to live." Colonel Musgrave then decided to telegraph to Marseilles and ask for an expert on goats. The expert arrived two days later, a fat farmer from the South, sergeant of Territorials. With the help of Aurelle, he had a long conversation with the colonel. "There is one thing," he said, "that goats cannot get on without, and that is heat. You must make very low wooden sheds for them; without any openings; let them stew in their own juice, and they will be happy!" He remarked to the interpreter when the colonel had gone, "Didn’t I tell them a good tale about their goats, _hé_? In the South they live out in the open and are as well as you or I. But let’s talk seriously. Couldn’t you get your English to manage an extension of leave for me, to look after their beasts, _hé_?" They had begun to build the huts described by the man from the South, when the Indian Corps wrote to Colonel Musgrave that they had discovered a British expert whom they were sending him. The new seer was an artillery officer, but goats filled his life. Aurelle, who looked after him a good deal, found out that he regarded everything in nature from the point of view of a goat. A Gothic cathedral, according to him, was a poor shelter for goats: not enough air, but that could be remedied by breaking the windows.