Even his friends feared that by his foolishness his career in the
army was at an end. Instead, his escapade was made a question in
the House of Commons, and the fact brought him such publicity
that the _Daily Graphic_ paid him handsomely to write on the
Cuban Revolution, and the Spanish Government rewarded him
with the Order of Military Merit.

At the very outbreak of the Boer war he was taken prisoner. It
seemed a climax of misfortune. With his brother officers he had
hoped in that campaign to acquit himself with credit, and that he
should lie inactive in Pretoria appeared a terrible calamity. To the
others who, through many heart-breaking months, suffered
imprisonment, it continued to be a calamity. But within six weeks
of his capture Churchill escaped, and, after many adventures,
rejoined his own army to find that the calamity had made him a
hero.

When after the battle of Omdurman, in his book on "The River
War," he attacked Lord Kitchener, those who did not like him, and
they were many, said: "That's the end of Winston in the army. He'll
never get another chance to criticise K. of K."

But only two years later the chance came, when, no longer a
subaltern, but as a member of the House of Commons, he
patronized Kitchener by defending him from the attacks of others.

Later, when his assaults upon the leaders of his own party closed to
him, even in his own constituency, the Conservative debating
clubs, again his ill-wishers said: "This _is_ the end. He has
ridiculed those who sit in high places. He has offended his cousin