to the wheel and had proceeded to continue the tour of the three villages - a

tour, Mr Charles assured me, that was completed thereafter in near silence.

 

Now that I have recalled this episode, another event from around that time in my

father's career comes to mind which demonstrates perhaps even more impressively

this special quality he came to possess. I should explain here that I am one of

two brothers - and that my elder brother, Leonard, was killed during the

Southern African War while I was still a boy. Naturally, my father would have

felt this loss keenly; but to make matters worse the usual comfort a father has

in these situations - that is, the notion that his son gave his life gloriously

for king and country - was sullied by the fact that my brother had perished in a

particularly infamous manoeuvre. Not only was it alleged that the manoeuvre had

been a most un-British attack on civilian Boer settlements, overwhelming

evidence emerged that it had been irresponsibly commanded with several floutings

of elementary military precautions, so that the men who had died - my brother

among them - had died quite needlessly. In view of what I am about to relate, it

would not be proper of me to identify the manoeuvre any more precisely, though

you may well guess which one I am alluding to if I say that it caused something

of an uproar at the time, adding significantly to the controversy the conflict

as a whole was attracting. There had been calls for the removal, even the

court-martialling, of the general concerned, but the army had defended the

latter and he had been allowed to complete the campaign. What is -less known is

that at the close of the Southern African conflict, this same general had been

discreetly retired, and he had then entered business, dealing in shipments from

Southern Africa. I relate this because some ten years after the conflict, that