Both men and mounts were wellnigh
exhausted, and the officers had decreed a halt.
The strain had been intense. Now, with the relaxing of it, its
memory vanished, and the halt swiftly took upon itself the
appearance of a school holiday. Laughing and chaffing each other,
groups of men loitered here and lounged there, smoking, writing
letters, and taking stout, unlovely stitches in their time-worn
khaki clothing. At one side of the camp was the tent of the mess
sergeant, equipped like a portable species of corner grocery. Near
by, Paddy apparently was in his element, presiding over his camp-
kitchen, a vast bonfire encircled with a dozen iron pots. At the
farther edge of the camp Weldon was umpiring a game of football
between his own squadron and a company of the Derbys. Owing to the
athletic zeal of the hour, it was big-side, and Weldon was too busy
in keeping his eye upon so many players to pay much attention to his
own loneliness.
In all truth, however, he was lonely. The week since he had rejoined
his squadron had dragged perceptibly. Captain Frazer was in Cape
Town; Carew was still in hospital at Johannesburg where, under the
eyes of Alice Mellen and her cousin, he was fast resuming his old
finical habits.
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