Mr. Rudyard Kipling has a fine poem in Wednesday's Times
on "Bridge-guard in the Karroo," taking for his text the prosaic instructions from the district orders • " and
will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge." After a striking picture of the pageantry of a South African sunset, Mr. Kipling describes the soldiers changing guard. Then in a few vivid stanzas he shows the men taking their
appointed stations amid the peculiar sounds of the African night, the approach of "the wonderful north-bound train," the brief pleasure of meeting and greeting, the "handful of week-old papers," the "mouthful of human speech," and then concludes :— " So we return to our places, As out on the bridge she rolls ;
And the darkness covers our faces
And the darkness re-enters our souls.
More than a little lonely, Where the lessening tail-lights shine.
No, not combatants—only Details guarding the line !"
It is comparatively easy to draw poetic) inspiration from the
shock of battle. It is a far more arduous and more valuable achievement to enlist sympathy for the obscure but faithful workers who render possible the dramatic and decisive strokes of modern warfare.
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