The United service magazine: Volume 174 - Page 203
On the idle days Malleson got leave to go and visit the Zulu kraals in the neighbourhood of the Amatikulu. Very friendly he found his late enemies. They had been beaten, but bore no grudge, and seemed always ready to welcome the English "Inkosi" into their villages, and offer such simple hospitality as their kraals afforded. Nursing a little black naked baby, covered as is the custom of the country with red clay, Malleson sometimes found himself the centre of an admiring and laughing crowd of "Intombis," with whom he talked freely through his interpreter. At other times the men would gather round him, show him their wounds, and describe with infinite gesture their individual acts in the war.
Not long after this, Malleson was ordered to. take tents and stay until further orders at the Tuyoni drift, some few miles from the Tugela river. Here, for a long time, he was quite alone as far as regarded the company of white men. Up to this he had enjoyed excellent health. Long marches in the sun, bad food, and worse water, hard work, wet nights, everything seemed to agree with him. But one night, after a harder day's work than usual, he felt a queer languor creeping over him. This was succeeded by a fit of shivering, but he turned in, and slept and thought no more about it.
The next day a transport officer, called Arthur, came by, whom Malleson knew, and turned into camp to have a pipe and a chat. Malleson felt very seedy, but made no complaint. Occasionally he shivered; a fact that Arthur's keen eyes noticed.
"Look here, old man," he said to Malleson; "you 're looking very seedy. I think you are in for a turn of fever. I had it myself, and know what it is like."
"Yes," returned Malleson; "I am not too well, but it will pass off, I daresay. It's just the miserable loneliness of this place; not a fellow to speak to here for days together, and the food bad as well."
Arthur shook his head. He had seen a good many men in the same way, who had thought and hoped the same thing, but who had died, or spent many weary days in sickness.
"Well, old fellow, I shall be back in a couple of days. "What can I do for you. Can I bring you anything?"
"My dear Arthur," said Malleson, "if I 'm going to be ill, I 'm going to be ill, and that's all about it. But, unlike the Prince of Wales, my thirst has come on before my fever—if it is fever. Try and raise a couple of big bottles of Bass for me, old chap. I feel I should like that more than anything else I can think of, whether it would be deadly or not."
"Right you are, Malleson," replied Arthur, who was one of those cheery fellows who would do anything for anybody, and who had hosts of friends everywhere. "You shall have the beer."
by Edward Alfred Pollard, 1869
In Richmond there was no end of "confidence men," pretenders, gossipers; and any man who sought a brief hour of self-importance had only to profess that he had been admitted to a back-door confidence with some General, Secretary, or even Department clerk. The most paltry individuals affected this confidence. A disreputable blockade-runner, accustomed to wait in the ante-rooms of head clerks for passports, or permits for whiskey and woolen goods, would, to gaping and ill smelling audiences in bar rooms, tell stories of "behind the scenes," and offer explanations why General Lee fought the battle of Gettysburg, and what were President Davis's whispered words about Johnston.
It would be one of the most curious volumes of modern times, a collection of all the rumors circulated in Richmond alone during the war, leaving out none of their absurdities. It would be metaphysically interesting as showing how busy and various the human fancy is. There are but two persons now who could make such a collection, even approximately; and they, through this generation, will be graphically remembered in Richmond as the rival news-hunters of a historical period. In this character they were the most notorious men in the capital.
The first, a wealthy speculator and man of leisure, was popularly known as "Long Tom," from his thin and elongated figure. This man appeared to take a morbid delight in the sole occupation of hunting news day and night; it got to be a kind of insanity with him; he scarcely ate or slept, and, at almost every hour of the day, and far into the night, he might be seen haunting the telegraph office, wandering like a weary ghost in the passage way of the War Department, or holding his hand to his ear on the skirts of every crowd on the street corners. He had no particular purpose to serve in this eavesdropping and ear-wigging; it was his entertainment, his occupation by choice, and he was never happier than when he obtained a piece of news, good or bad, with permission to retail it.
His rival in the rumor business was a little, ferrety, incoherent man, a druggist by profession, but a "sensationist" by real occupation. He dealt only in the largest sensations. He had a habit of speaking with infinite gesture; would sometimes be lost in a perfect splutter of exclamation, when he had important news to convey; and was so dense and un-intelligible in his communications, that he generally had to tell his story twice to be understood. He would sometimes break into the newspaper offices, pale and incoherent, with the most dreadful stories, nigh to bursting with news, and in such tremor from his emotions that the reporters would find it a task to calm him, and were wont to compose his nerves by a strengthening draught as a preface to his recital. Once the author recollects to have been called across the street by this little man making the most eager and dramatic gestures, and actually quivering with excitement. "Great God, have you heard the news, Mr. P.," he exclaimed thickly; "Jeff. Davis has just...
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