In the Ranks of the C.I.V

A Boer War Memoir of British Volunteer Soldiers, Campaign Hardships, Comradeship, and the South African CampaignBy Erskine Childers

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Length5h 49m

About this audiobook

In the Ranks of the C.I.V. is Erskine Childers's vivid, firsthand account of service with the City Imperial Volunteers during the South African War. Combining diary-like immediacy with reflective military reportage, Childers records training, embarkation, camp routine, reconnaissance, skirmishes, and the uneasy realities of campaigning across the veld. His attention to landscape, logistics, discipline, and the ordinary soldier's experience gives the book value beyond adventure narrative: it is also a revealing document of late-Victorian imperial culture and the emerging conventions of modern war writing. The prose is precise, observant, and often understated, balancing patriotic feeling with an informed awareness of hardship and uncertainty. Childers wrote from direct experience, having joined the C.I.V. during the conflict and served as an officer in the mounted infantry. His background as a civil servant, sailor, and accomplished writer equipped him to observe both military organization and colonial society with unusual clarity. The book belongs to the period's substantial literature of imperial travel and campaign memoir, yet its practical detail and restrained skepticism distinguish it from simpler celebrations of military glory. It also anticipates the disciplined political intelligence that would characterize his later career and writings. Readers interested in the Boer War, Victorian Britain, military history, or the development of documentary war literature will find this a particularly valuable account. Its combination of narrative movement, topographical precision, and human observation makes it rewarding both as historical evidence and as literature. It offers an intimate perspective on soldiers whose experience complicates the grand rhetoric of empire.

Journey Adventure Coming of Age Identity

Audiobook details

Rating★★★★ 3.8 (24)

Includes Goodreads

GenreHistory

Length5 hrs 49 mins

Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices

FormateBook with Audio

Publish dateNov 30, 2023

LanguageEnglish

1Bianca; or, The Young Spanish Maiden (Annotated)

2A wintry ride—Retrospect—Embarkation—A typical day—"Stables" in rough weather—Las Palmas—The tropics—Inoculation—Journalism—Fashions—"Intelligent anticipation"—Stable-guard—Arrival.

3Landing—Green Point Camp—Getting into trim—My horses—Interlude—Orders to march—Sorrows of a spare driver—March to Stellenbosch—First bivouac—A week of dust and drill—The road to water—Off again.

4Piquetberg Road—A fire—Kitless—A typical day—A bed—"Stableman"—Picket—A rebel—Orders for the front, with a proviso—Rain—An ungrateful patient—"Bazing"—Swimming horses—My work—The weather—A blue letter.

5The railway north—Yesterday's start—Travelling made easy—Feeding horses—A menu—De Aar—A new climate—Naauwport—Over the frontier—Bloemfontein—A fiasco—To camp again—The right section—Diary days—Riding exercise—A bit of history—Longman's Hospital—The watering-place—Artillery at drill—A review—A camp rumour—A taste of freedom—A tent scene.

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6MENU.

7LINDLEY.

8BETHLEHEM.

9BULTFONTEIN.

10SLABBERT'S NEK AND FOURIESBERG.

11TO PRETORIA.

12WARMBAD.[A]

13HOSPITAL.

14A DETAIL.

15Ordered home—Back to the Battery—Good-bye to the horses—The charm of the veldt—Recent work of the Battery—Paget's farewell speech—Hard-won curios—The last bivouac—Roberts's farewell—The southward train—De Wet?—Mirages—A glimpse of Piquetberg road—The Aurania—Embarkation scenes—The last of Africa—A pleasant night.

16Impressions of the voyage—Sentry-go—Troopship—Limitations—Retrospect—St. Vincent—Forecasts—The Start—The Needles—Southampton Water—Landing—Paddington—A dream.