Adventures and Letters [109]
was back. And I'm going too. I'll have started by the time you get this.
I mean to cut out of this soon but don't imagine I'm in any danger. I'm taking d---d good care to keep out of danger. No one is more determined on that than I am. Dear Mother, this is such a dull letter but you must forgive me. I was never so homesick and bored in my life. It will be better when I go out tomorrow in my green tent and leave this beastly hole. I like the tent life, and the horses and being clean. I've really starved here for four days and haven't had a clean thing on me. God bless you all and dear Nora God bless her and Chas and the Lone Fisherman.
DICK.
Outside Ladysmith. 5th March, 1900. DEAREST MOTHER:
I was a brute to write as I did last night. But I was so blue in that miserable town!!! It was so foul and dirty. The town smelt as bad as Johnstown. My room in the so called hotel stunk, the dirt was all over the floor and the servants had to be paid to do everything even to bring you a towel--and then I had no place to write or be alone, and nothing to eat-- The poor souls at my table who had been in the siege, when they got a little bit of sugar or a can of condensed milk would carry it off from the table as though it were a diamond diadem-- I did the same thing myself for I couldn't eat what they gave me and so I corrupted the canteen dealer and bought tin things-- I've really never wanted tobacco so much and food as I have here--to give away I mean, for it was something wonderful to see what it meant to them. Three troopers came into the dining room yesterday and asked if they could buy some tea and were turned out so rudely that it seemed to hurt them much more than the fact that they were hungry: I followed them out and begged them to come back to my verandah and have tea with me but they at first would not because they knew I had witnessed what had happened in the hotel. They belonged to a very good regiment and they had been starved for four months. But in spite of their independence I got them to my porch. I had just purchased at awful prices a few delicacies like sugar and tobacco, marmalade and a bottle of whiskey. So I gave them to them and I never enjoyed anything so much-- The poor yellow faced skeletons ate in absolute silence still fighting with their pride until I told them I was an American and was a canteen contractor's friend-- Then I gave them segars and it was too pitiful-- In our column, if you give a man something extra he says a lot and swears it's the best drink or the best segar or that you're the best chap he ever met-- Just as I say it to them when they give me things. But these starved bodies tried to be very polite and conversational on every subject except food--when I offered them the segars which could only be got then at a dollar twenty-five a piece (they had not cost me that as I had bought them in Cape Town for two cents apiece!) What has Dad to say to that for economy? They accepted them quite as though it was in Havana--and then leaned back and went off into opium dreams-- Imagine the first segar after three months. I am out here now on a bluff, with two trees in front and great hills with names historical of the siege of Ladysmith--names which I refuse to learn or remember--I am perfectly comfortable and were it not for Cecil perfectly content-- If she were only here it would be perfectly magnificent-- I have a retinue that would do credit to the Warringtons in the Virginians-- Three Kaffir boys who refuse to yield to my sense of the picturesque and go naked like their less effete brothers, two oxen and three ponies, a little puppy I found starved in Ladysmith and fed on compressed beef tablets. I call her Ladysmith and she sleeps beside my cot and in my lap when I am reading--I have also a beautiful tent with tape window panes, ventilators, pockets inside, doors that loop up and red knobs; also, it is green so that the ants won't eat it. Also two tables, two chairs, a bath tub, two lanterns, and a cape cart--and a folding bed-- In Cuba I had two saddle
I mean to cut out of this soon but don't imagine I'm in any danger. I'm taking d---d good care to keep out of danger. No one is more determined on that than I am. Dear Mother, this is such a dull letter but you must forgive me. I was never so homesick and bored in my life. It will be better when I go out tomorrow in my green tent and leave this beastly hole. I like the tent life, and the horses and being clean. I've really starved here for four days and haven't had a clean thing on me. God bless you all and dear Nora God bless her and Chas and the Lone Fisherman.
DICK.
Outside Ladysmith. 5th March, 1900. DEAREST MOTHER:
I was a brute to write as I did last night. But I was so blue in that miserable town!!! It was so foul and dirty. The town smelt as bad as Johnstown. My room in the so called hotel stunk, the dirt was all over the floor and the servants had to be paid to do everything even to bring you a towel--and then I had no place to write or be alone, and nothing to eat-- The poor souls at my table who had been in the siege, when they got a little bit of sugar or a can of condensed milk would carry it off from the table as though it were a diamond diadem-- I did the same thing myself for I couldn't eat what they gave me and so I corrupted the canteen dealer and bought tin things-- I've really never wanted tobacco so much and food as I have here--to give away I mean, for it was something wonderful to see what it meant to them. Three troopers came into the dining room yesterday and asked if they could buy some tea and were turned out so rudely that it seemed to hurt them much more than the fact that they were hungry: I followed them out and begged them to come back to my verandah and have tea with me but they at first would not because they knew I had witnessed what had happened in the hotel. They belonged to a very good regiment and they had been starved for four months. But in spite of their independence I got them to my porch. I had just purchased at awful prices a few delicacies like sugar and tobacco, marmalade and a bottle of whiskey. So I gave them to them and I never enjoyed anything so much-- The poor yellow faced skeletons ate in absolute silence still fighting with their pride until I told them I was an American and was a canteen contractor's friend-- Then I gave them segars and it was too pitiful-- In our column, if you give a man something extra he says a lot and swears it's the best drink or the best segar or that you're the best chap he ever met-- Just as I say it to them when they give me things. But these starved bodies tried to be very polite and conversational on every subject except food--when I offered them the segars which could only be got then at a dollar twenty-five a piece (they had not cost me that as I had bought them in Cape Town for two cents apiece!) What has Dad to say to that for economy? They accepted them quite as though it was in Havana--and then leaned back and went off into opium dreams-- Imagine the first segar after three months. I am out here now on a bluff, with two trees in front and great hills with names historical of the siege of Ladysmith--names which I refuse to learn or remember--I am perfectly comfortable and were it not for Cecil perfectly content-- If she were only here it would be perfectly magnificent-- I have a retinue that would do credit to the Warringtons in the Virginians-- Three Kaffir boys who refuse to yield to my sense of the picturesque and go naked like their less effete brothers, two oxen and three ponies, a little puppy I found starved in Ladysmith and fed on compressed beef tablets. I call her Ladysmith and she sleeps beside my cot and in my lap when I am reading--I have also a beautiful tent with tape window panes, ventilators, pockets inside, doors that loop up and red knobs; also, it is green so that the ants won't eat it. Also two tables, two chairs, a bath tub, two lanterns, and a cape cart--and a folding bed-- In Cuba I had two saddle