In former chapters I have wandered away from the purpose of this book as a record of the Socialist movement in South Africa, vet those subjects have some relation to it, and as this record is almost an autobiography perhaps I may be allowed a little scope. I have gone considerably into the question of war; therefore many will wonder why I was once a soldier, or in other words why I accepted, as we used to say, "a shilling a day to be shot at," or to offer my services to shoot my fellow beings. Well, I was a lad of twenty years working in Birmingham-a hundred miles from my home. Work was scarce and I knew a Guardsman's home was in London, near my own. I knew, too, they were the pick of the British Army, and I then thought them to be, as they were sarcastically described, "feather-bed soldiers," who never went abroad, and therefore, I concluded, never went to war.

I presented myself at the recruiting office in James Wath Street, Birmingham, on the 20th of October 1892, and served with the colours of the Coldstream Guards for ten years and 203 days, which included three years in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. Also, being a carpenter by profession, I was chosen for an artificer's course at Artillery College, Woolwich, where they kept me for two years. I gained a "superior" certificate,' which allowed me to jump all my senior crafts­men on the artificer staff when I returned to the regiment, and, like Hitler, I was made corporal above them soon afterwards.

By coincidence I was marched out of Wellington Barracks London, with my regiment for war in South Africa on the same day I should have been discharged on my first seven years' service, October 20th, 1899. On my return from the Boer War I applied for my dis charge before reaching the allotted period of twelve years. Coincidence again was peculiar. My discharge happened to come on my birthday anniversary, May 16th, 1905. I was then thirty-two years of age.

I returned to South Africa then to start a new life as a civilian, landing here on August Bank Holiday the same year. A record of my life since is given in much detail in this book. However, another peculiar incident happened on my birthday anniversary just thirty-two years afterwards-on the day I was sixty-four. I, with what others of the Household Brigade of Guards in Cape Town that could be found, was invited to dine with some Guards officers then staying here-one of whom was the son of my once commanding officer, General Pole Carew.

We had a happy evening, speeches on reminiscences of the famous Guards Brigade went; of course, all round the table. I being the senior Coldstreamer present, and being, as my fellow Guardsmen in Cape Town knew, a practised public speaker, it should have been my lot to respond on their behalf. However, it didn't happen; for once at a social gathering, other than general private conversation, I kept my mouth closed. The recruit of the party, known as "Cape Town's funny man," Paddy McGuire, demanded, as an Irishman naturally would, that it was his duty to do so.

Not so much perhaps because he could say much when he did rise to speak but that I, the Bolshevik, should not do so. He and his fellow policemen of Cape Town were, of course, given the impression that Bolsheviks were terrible people. The rest of the gathering toasted "the King." I didn't. They also sang "God Save the King." I didn't. I went there for no such purpose, but just to meet a few old Guards­men I had not seen for many years. I did not expect that to be understood by some of the Communists who, hearing of it, reminded me of my jingo diversions.

However, if that association with a few of my old-time comrades of the Guards Brigade is proof of my jingoism I have forgotten it since and refused an invitation to join the Old Brigade Association still existent in South Africa, and I gave them my reasons for it.

There has been another world war since, in which many of the Communists dangled their swords with the jingos, and which we suppose was considered compatible with their international loyalty to the Socialist cause. The next page will give some details of army life in my day, the nineties of the last century-then a fraudulent institu­tion, robbing the serving soldier of nearly 50 per cent. of the recruiting poster's promised amount of a shilling' a day. That we were sent to war at a shilling a day to be shot at was literally true. Yet it is not true because a soldier's shilling a day in the nineties of the last century suffered several deductions, unexplained on the recruiting poster. It worked out like this: They fed us, of course, but only with one pound of bread and three-quarters of a pound of meat nothing else. And that three-quarter was about three ounces when it was served on the plate at the midday meal. Any extras such as potatoes, butter or jam, or a very occasional second course, such as "Army duff" or "blob"-the soldier's nicknames for plain pudding and tapioca-were supplied by the "messing account"-messing 3 ½d.per day stopped from each man's shilling. These extras were only served for breakfast and midday, rarely ever was there anything but "slingers" for tea-meaning dry bread dipped in your basin of tea. There is, of course, both a dry and wet canteen in all barracks, where the hungry growing soldier could spend the few halfpence left of his shilling-tempting dishes at the coffee bar and beer at 1 ½d. per pint in the canteen. But that is not all the stoppages we suffered in those days. A soldier's shirt-the "grey-backs" we called them-wanted washing once a week. To pay the washing account another ½d. per day was deducted, leaving a six-foot Guardsman 9d. to buy his supper and take his best girl out in the evening.

At the end of the month he "signs the book," when he is again reminded that there is a Id. library fund for him to pay; 2d. barrack damages which means he must also keep his barracks in repair; and 2d. delf fund-in case of a broken basin or plate, his only crockery. Originally he was served out with a full kit, and annually he was served two pairs of trousers, one white jacket, one tunic, one pair of boots, but never another shirt, towel, socks or any of his "small kit," brushes or cleaning material. Those two shirts, two pairs of socks, towels and "small kit" must last him even if he serves the full twenty-one years; and he must show that amount of full kit at the weekly Kit inspection all the time. If there is one item deficient he is "put down" for it-also to be stopped from that is per day. Now these are facts from my own experience, although I have made one mistake. Guards­men are the supposed elite of the British Army and his pay in those days was Is. Id., less all stoppages mentioned.

In 1899 we were sent to South Africa, and I had some very startling changes in my view about those "feather-beds" during my three years on the African veld during the Anglo-Boer War. Also the Guardsmen then and since then have had quite their share of war. Further, the "feather-beds" are not a reality, even at Buckingham Palace, at which a company of the Guards are always in residence. I was once so favoured. The barrack room there for that purpose is of the orthodox type-solid iron folding bed with hard "biscuit" mattresses. Again, every third night a London Guardsman is occupied at one of the many palaces-also the Bank and the Mint- in front of which he must pace with fixed bayonet for then protection. The Guards are also in occupation of the Tower of London-the place where I did my first year of soldiering-where once kings lived and ruled a nation that knew no parliament, and where many of them also, with other potentates, have suffered execution. Every traditional function is still carried out. I have myself been escort with a file of the guard to the old Yeoman of the Guard, who at midnight carries the keys to lock up the gates and the drawbridge. He is challenged by the sentry, to whom he says he has the "King's keys," and the guard turns out to salute them before he takes them to the "King's House." The moat round the Tower is now dry and used as the drilling ground, known to the Guardsmen as "the ditch." I also got more startling changes in my views of the "liberties" and luxuries these ornaments of Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace were, according to their recruiting posters, supposed to enjoy.

About the first thing I heard the drill sergeant of my squad say was, "We tame lions here!" That was in the early nineties of the last century, and it was considered a crime then to have in our kit Reynolds Newspaper. I think that paper said Queen Victoria, who reigned then, was "a more fitted Mrs. Grundy." Had they known that I attended the meetings of a Socialist group in a little garret in Pimlico not far from Chelsea Barracks where I was then stationed, it would have meant a court martial.

That group also introduced me to the Despard Club in Wands-worth Road, opposite the Nine Elms Station, where I was introduced to Mrs. Despard to get her permission to be admitted. She did not mind, she had a brother a soldier. He was the famous General French in the 1914 Great War. All old comrades will remember her work for the cause. She died only a few years ago. Yet even then, about fifty years ago, she wore the matronly bonnet and her hair neatly parted in the middle, the custom in that age.