The Savannah morning news., 1901-02-01
Ni2ht Alarms.

Away they go back to the outpost
which cons SITS of alb ut thirty men, en-
| sconced in little natural fort, a rise of
| ground strewn with large boulders. Most
! of these men are fast asleep. In the or
| binary way one would not feel like sleep
! ing on outpost duty; but the continued
| physical strain of active service is so
| fatiguing that not even the danger of n
night attack or sniping to which an out
J post is particularly liable, will ward off
the much needed sleep.
An army must have a certain amount of
sleep, and what ! tile eep do set
should be, if possib e, undisturb d. The e
is nothing more wearing to troops en-
active service than frequent night arms,
Continual false alarms are both phys
cal.y and mo ally injurious. Our sys m
of outposts, however, gives us a feellr G
of tolerable security. Our enemy suffer-
ed more than ours Ives from false nieht
alarms. They had had a few alarms
VIII oh Were far from ia Sc, and they were
followed by attacks VIII Oh our friend the
enemy does not easily forget On sever j
occasions l was tod by Beers that they
never had a comfortable nights rest for
fear of bayo ct attack. l believe them
The outpost system, like a. good sys-
TENS, is very simple, Outpo Is, consist
ing of twenty or thirty men, are placed
around the army. Santries are placed
some distance in trent the outpo is
The distance between sentr es vari s, but
it is always such that no ore could creep
in between two sent'ies without being
seen by one of them This also spplie, to
the flank sent~ies of adjacent posts We
have thus a complete chat o. sc tries
In the case of a night att ok the sent~y
to whom the enemy fl :. bee mes Wish e
ret'res to the outpo and ~epor's, O.. If
there Is no time for this, fires off his rife
The outoost defen9s its portion; but il
the attack be gerui7e one, will rroba, lv'
be slowly driven Jack Tp tn ma N
body, by which time it W uld he ready to
meet the attack The marcrv of eds
of valor peri rmed by B It'll outro IS
not only in the S0uth Afr can camoaigo,
but in previous wars, gives the Br isI
soldier thet sense OF security so neces-
sary to prolonged active service
what n Stable Picket Must Do.
So much for the serious side Of SENTRY
go; but there is anoth kidd of Sc try
whose work is not fraught with physical
danger. but which has the effect of m
pairing the temper Of a saint. Have YOU
ever heard of gentleman called line
orderly? He is some ines cored a stable
picket. or horse guard or various ether
names, according to the fancy of his c M
mandinF officer. His duty is to look af-
ter the horse lines at night. 1t is harrow
ing work.
He takes charge of about thirty horses.
These are in o line, with their heads tied
together. Some of the horses try to
Craze, and in pushing forward the re-
nialnder step forward, so that a line Or
derlys work is principally keeping back
the animals. He walks quickly up and
down the line, persuading the brutes TO
keep back. We found 1t a good plan to
put our hands into our overcoat pockets
and flap the horses noses with the skirts
OF the overcoat 1t is effective but doesn't
improve the cloak. If ii is the rainy
season. the horse lines are usually a quag-
nlire, which doesn't make the work any
pleasanter. There is one blessing how
ever. You may smoke; but, and this is a
big but. you must first get your match
These are rare. II there is no FIRE. Won
will probably have to forego your smoke.
your comrades have peculiar objection
to being woke up to be asked for a match.
a marvellous thing about horse lines ie