German stories of English wickedness. When I told her of Portugal's
entry into the war, and how our ancient and hereditary ally had handed
over to England sixty out of the seventy-one German ships she had taken
in her ports, Elizabeth snorted with rage and said that England, of
course, forced all the little nations to fight against Germany.

One of my friends, and not the least welcome, was Corporal Nel. A Boer,
he had come up from the Union with Brits. Tiring of war, he chose the
nobler part played by the guard that cherishes German captured cattle.
Swiftly losing his job owing to an outbreak of East Coast fever among
his herd, he took to a vagabond's life. Wanted by the police in the
Union, I am told, he avoided his regiment and lived with the natives.
Forced to come to me one night with an attack of angina pectoris, he was
grateful for the ease from suffering that amyl-nitrite, morphia and
brandy gave in that exquisitely painful affliction. Accordingly he
consented to organise some natives who should be armed with passes
signed by me, and illuminated with Red Crosses and other impressive
signs, and collect eggs and chickens and fruit for my patients in
hospital. So impressed were the natives with the Ju-Ju conferred by my
illumination of these passes with coloured chalks, that they brought me
a daily and most welcome supply of these necessaries for our men. But
the arm of the Law is long, and it sought out Corporal Nel within the
native hut in which he made his home. And soon, to my sorrow and the
infinite grief of our lambs in hospital, for whom those eggs, chickens,
mangoes, and bananas spelt so much in the way of change of food, the
Provost Sergeant had this wanderer in his chitches.