across him.  In his mind’s eye he saw this prosaic tub sublimed into a romantic pool, and girdled by a rockery, in whose mossy crannies errant trickles of water might lose themselves, and perhaps fertilize exotic flora yet unborn.  At this moment I espied a wheelbarrow in the distance, and went for it with that purposeful briskness, which may sometimes be used in fatigues of this sort to disguise your real intentions.  For it is of the greatest importance in a fatigue to have an implement; it is the outward symbol of labour; if observation falls on you, you can wipe your brow and lean on it; you can even use it for a few minutes if necessary.  Without some stage property of this sort only a consummate actor can seem to be busy.  Well, I got to the barrow just in time.  There were two; a Grenadier Guardsman got the other, and amid envious looks we wheeled them off towards a heap of rubble in the offing, “conveniently low.”  Then, with a simultaneous sigh of relief, we mechanically produced our pipes and tobacco, found comfortable seats against the pile of rubble, and had a good chat, lazily watching the genesis of the naiad’s grotto in the distance.  When we had had a good smoke, and fought our battles over again, we got up and saw signs that the fatigue was guttering out; so we put a few stones in each of the barrows, and, well content, journeyed back to the scene of operations, and laid our stones round the base of the tub, more because we knew nowhere else to lay them than for any other reason, for the sergeant-major had apparently forgotten his grandiose designs in other schemes, and had disappeared.  The fatigue party was thinning.  The corporal said what may be freely translated as “disappear quietly,” and we made off to our camp, where I found Henry, who had doctor’s leave to be excused fatigues, being lame.

CHAPTER XII.

A DETAIL.

September 18, continued.—­At two we paraded again with our kits, and about a dozen of us marched off to the Rest camp, which is the next stage.  Everything was very hurried, but Henry had just time to tell me that he was ordered to Bloemfontein, when I had to start.  We said good-bye, and I don’t suppose will meet again till London.  The Rest camp was about four miles off, on the other side of Pretoria.  Arrived very hot and dusty.  Waited some time, and then was told that I must go to the Artillery Barracks, another two miles in quite a different direction.  I might just as well have gone there direct.  However, I was lucky enough to get a lift for my kit and myself most of the way, and landed about 5.30 at a collection of big, red-brick buildings outside the town, was handed from person to person for some time, and finally found a resting-place on the floor of a huge bare room in a sort of a tin outbuilding, where some 150 R.A. men of all batteries were sitting or lying on their kit round the walls and down the centre; like lost souls, I pictured them,