"Feed them like princes and
pamper them like babies, and they'll complain all the time. But stand them
up to be shot at and they'll take it as a joke, and rather a good joke,
too." Lord Roberts maintains a dignified reticence, but that is "Bobs'
way":
He knew, none better, how 'twould be,
And spoke his warning far and wide:
He worked to save us ceaselessly,
Setting his well-earned ease aside.
We smiled and shrugged and went our way,
Blind to the swift approaching blow:
His every word proves true to-day,
But no man hears, "I told you so!"
Meanwhile General Botha, Boer and Briton too, is on the war-path, and we
can, without an undue stretch of imagination, picture him composing a
telegram to the Kaiser in these terms: "Just off to repel another raid.
Your customary wire of congratulations should be addressed, 'British
Headquarters, German South-West Africa.'"
[Illustration: GOD (AND THE WOMEN) OUR SHIELD
Study of a German Gentleman going into Action]
The rigours of the Censorship are pressing hard on war correspondents.
Official news of importance trickles in in driblets: for the rest,
newspaper men, miles from the front, are driven to eke out their dispatches
with negligible trivialities. We know that Rheims Cathedral is suffering
wanton bombardment. And a great many of us believe that at least a quarter
of a million Russians have passed through England on their way to France.
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