The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-06-10
CHEERFUL TOMMY ATKINS
SINGS AND WHISTLES UNDER DIS
CoURAGING CONDITIONS.
Julian Ralph Gives a Graphic Account
of the British Soldiers Manner
of Enduring Hardshfps.
Letter in London Mail.

drowned rats, wet as the veldt beneath
them, wet as the air around them. SILVER
ing. playing drum tunes with their teeth.
coughing. walking and stamping to keep
warm-doing everything except complain
ing.
L? My complaints? Why. beside those
men, / was duke with palace Of COM
forts. And if 1 had their complaints to
make instead of my own. I should have
been under and not atop of the wicked,
cruel veldt.
And these were guards, mind you-the
first few thousands spread over the first
few miles; Grenadiers, Scots, Coldstreams!
London pets" you have often called them:
''tin soldiers and you have laughed at
them in your London homes and newspa-
pers. Well, they did not complain at that,
and they are not complaining at this. The
officers were glad to take anything we
could give them to read. and the men did
not spurn small offerings of tobacco. but
it is only just to say that none of them
asked for anything
Down the line we came to a station and
camp which presented picture of misery
as complete as any that ever saw in
barracks in New York 1t was misery pared
down to the raw, though none of its suf-
ferers seemed aware of it. The beastly
veldt was a mosaic of little pools and
sodden tufts of sage. Upon this walked two
or three companies Of soldiers. The rain
beat upon everybody and everything fur
iously, and an eager wind slapped and
whipped it about. There were three or four
shelters. One, the largest, was made by
throwing tarpaulin sheet over two piles
of boxes. 1t was only breast high. and COW
cred sopping wet ground, but it served as
the mess room and retreat for the officers
who came out. by the way, in their wiring
ing wet clothes to ask us the usual shop
worn questions about the latest rumor tina.
Mafeking was relieved, and another that
Butler had done something
A BILL OF FARE.
could see in their tent and noticed that
they lived on bully beef timed milk tea
and jam-delicious things for a picnic-if
the picnic does not last seven months on
end.
Each of the other two shelters was made
by throwing porous blue army blanket
over pole and pinning down the sides so
as to make burrow two feet high and six
feet long. 1t seemed to me that it must be
slightly wetter and a hundred-fold more
disagreeable in such hutch than out on
the veldt. 1t was out on the veldt that we
saw the Tommies; the poor neglected. all
Sunering, woe-begone looking, but none the
less deviI-may-care Tommies i wonder if
the kindly society which is clamoring to
know what ill-treatment our horses suffer
would continue to worry itself about the
horses -
Perhaps they would, though the fact is
there is never any unnecessary ill-treat-
ment OF a horse in this army. whereas the
men-but that is the story am telling
The Tommies were walking up and down
in the rain. Their overcoatS We're not only
soaking wet, but for some strange mill
tary reason. were split behind straight up
to the small of each mans back so as to
expose all of each leg TO the wet. A few
had put blankets over their coats, and were
also walking. walking. walking One was
seated on box with an audience of three
others on boxes and was singing a music
hall ditty vigorously through his nose
Several who walked about were whistling
All seemed either very happy reasonably
so. can no more account for their spirits
than / can explain the motive of the lion
tanners virago wife who cried ''Cowardr'
at him when he left her in the middle of a
curtain lecture to go and sleep in the lions
cage.
ALWAYS WHISTLE IN THE RAIN.
They had been soaking wet and chilled
to the bone for days. They could cook
nothing. boil nothing heat nothing, for not
a dry thing with which to make fire
could be found upon the soaking veldt
They doubtless had plenty to eat. but it
was all timed stuff, and must have been
taken cold and eaten, each thing by itself,
without a chance of making toothsome
combinations Plenty were dying. plenty
-;1Ixo
uncomfortable; yet those who were of the
mettle TO survive were whistling. singing
AID cracking jokes. They are welcome to
crack one at me for speaking of my own
troubles, where men have to live, as l
saw perhaps, 10000 living between Bloem-
fontein and NorvaPs Pont
They always whistle and sing when it
rains, said one of the officers who was on
the train. That / had not noticed; but
will say for Tommy that, except for two or
three days after our reverse at Mayors
fontein, / never saw him when he was
not cheerful
Tommy is the queerest human I ever
saw-the most inexplicable. When his ra-
tons are down to two biscuits in three
days, you may hear the fact mentioned,
In an incidental way, by man here and
there, but no one growls about ii, as
sailors would do When Tommy is marched
in suffocating heat until his mates begin
| TO drop out of the ranks or fall on their
| faces from the ranks, a play of repartee
Will spring among them, and cOrnfcal ideas
| and phrases will fly from line to line. Tom
| my is seldom witty-at least, / have heard
| little genuine wit in the ranks-but he is
| droll and comical in high degree.
| / wonder II 1 told You of the talk !
| heard when the first Reservists came to
Modder? Il say, mate" said a Tommy,
them blooming new chaps says they re
| a busting for a fight. I've always noticed
| that men In barricks and men fresh from
| 'ome is sure to be Dustin for a fight. Well.
| let EN- bust. I know what we're Dustin
| for; were Dustin 10 git 'ome."
SUNDAY AT HOME.
| and here's another sample. Some one
discovers that it is Sunday. 1t is little
| after IL o'clock. He announces these
| facts. II can see the people at ome," an
other replies. They've all got bloomin'
button 'oles, and they're standing around
waitin' for the pubs. TO OPEN
Tommy wants not the past and needs
not the future-that has been truly said
of him. Yesterdays battle and its terrors
and the fact that only nine men are in the
| tent that held sixteen last night. seem to
| impress him much less that a sudden
| flight of locusts. OF the battle he casually
! remarks. 1T certainly We're bit thick
| sir" But the locusts excite him wonder
| fully. l have seen all the men of the Cold
| stream and the Scots Guards out Of their
| tents in their undershirts and breeches