Which is Bobs,

Rides the tallest ’orse ’e can—

Our Bobs!

If it bucks or kicks or rears,

’e can sit for twenty years

With a smile round both ’is ears—

Can’t yer, Bobs?

“That’s a very unconvincing attempt at a demotic accent!” Dunne commented, and in a supple switch of tone, added a couple of lines in the true voice of a soldier of the line:

Oh, ’e’s little but ’e’s wise

’e’s a terror for ’is size

An ’e does not advertise—

Do yer, Bobs?

“Fan of the music hall, Kipling! And none like him for giving a voice—however rough—to the common soldier. And he didn’t exaggerate the military acumen of Lord Roberts. He is—was—‘Our Bobs,’ who led us into Kimberley in double-quick time, riding the very tallest horse the army could provide. Very soon after that, he’d gotten Piet Cronjé in the bag—and his missis!”

“And you met him? You spoke to the great man?” Redfyre was aware that he sounded awestruck, but didn’t much care.

“He listened to what we had to say and bustled out himself to the horse lines to take a look at the black. Kipling gets it right, you know—he was a true horseman! And Kipling was in South Africa at the time, reporting the news. I like to think that the very horse he saw him prancing around on was our horse! I think Bobs was more taken with the animal than the contents of the saddlebags! I saw him riding it often after that introduction. He was intrigued by the pouches and had the saddle taken away to the army saddlery in Cape Town—for copying, I expect. Well, it was a good effective design that deserved to be reused.”

The prisoner looked questioningly at Redfyre, who had suddenly frozen, still and focused. “What?”

“Say that again, will you?” Redfyre told him.

But the captain didn’t need to. The chain rattled noisily, underlining his anger and despair as he raised both fists to pound the sides of his head in frustration.

Redfyre moved the tea tray aside and pulled the map back into position between them. “Now, you had mentioned that anything to be secreted for later retrieval in this landscape should be buried deep and the spot clearly marked? Take a pencil and add the burial site, would you? The place where you laid Louis Duvallon to rest in a wooden coffin. In a deep hole dug by corporals Merriman and Jessup.”

Captain Dunne responded at once with a large black cross in indelible pencil. They looked at each other.

“X marks the spot, I think,” Redfyre suggested.

“Or did,” said Dunne thoughtfully.

“You remarked that on the day you rode away, you didn’t see it? The wooden marker?”