'A Man Never Knows his Luck in South Africa': Some Australian Literary Myths from the Boer War

One night late in 1901, in the Spelonken district to the North of Pietersburg, a certain Australian Lieutenant in the Bushveldt Carbineers lay with his men in ambush above the laager of Field-Cornet Tom Kelly, a notorious Boer irregular leader: The night was intenselv cold, but we lay there w1thm 50 yards of them until the first streak of dawn. During the n1ght a dog scented us and started to bark, a Boer got up and gave 11 a kick to quieten 1t, at which Morant remarked, 'A man never knows his luck m South Africa'.1