Here are the quotations for the coming week (March 22nd to 28th):
1. ...Long before I reached the Gully of the Horsemen, I heard the shouts
of the British
Infantry crying cheerily: "Hutt, ye beggars! Hutt, ye devils! Get along!
Go forward, there!"
Then followed the ringing of rifle-butts and shrieks of pain. The troops
were banging the
bare toes of the mob with their gun-butts - for not a bayonet had been
fixed...
2. The clamour might have continued to the dawn had it not been broken by
the noise of a shot without that sent every man feeling for his
defenceless left side. Then there was a scuffle and a yell of pain.
"Carbine-stealing again!" said the adjutant, calmly sinking back in his
chair. "This comes of reducing the guards. I hope the sentries have killed
him."
3. Five volleys plunged the files in banked smoke impenetrable to the eye,
and the bullets began to take ground twenty or thirty yards in front of
the firers, as the weight of the bayonet dragged down and to the right
arms wearied with holding the kick of the jolting Martini.
The sources of this week's extracts (Ma 15-21) are as follows:
1. ('...Have it as you've a mind to,' he was saying, 'but the vivers of
her roots they hold
the bank together...') This is from "Hal 'o the Draft" in Puck of Pook's
Hill.
2. ('...The brook she'd crep' up on us, an' she kep' creepin' upon us
till we was workin' knee deep in the shallers..') This is from "Friendly
Brook" in A Diversity of Creatures.
3. ('...Twas hot an' windy for weeks, an' the streets stinkin' o' dried
'orse-dung blowin' from side to side an' lyin' level with the kerb...')
This is from "The Wish House" in Debits and Credits.
In the New Readers' Guide we have just published notes byJohn McGivering
on "The Outsider", another story of the South African War which has only
been collected in the Sussex Edition, together with the text of the story.
It is a remarkable polemic against the incompetence and complacency of the
exclusive old County Regiments of the Regular Army.
Good wishes to all, John R
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