Brussels they found that the situation was actually worse than previously, and the family moved between cheap hotels, each one worse than the one before. Desperate for a job, Hastings accepted the offer of an apprenticeship with an English engineer who claimed to have made a machine to extract gold in North Wales. After about a year and a half of work they discovered that there was no gold to be found in that part of Wales, and Hastings was informed that his services would no longer be needed. Military service and call to the bar Hastings left the failed mining operation in 1899, and travelled to London. Just after he arrived, the Second Boer War broke out, and the British government called for volunteers to join an expeditionary force. The only qualifications required were that the recruit could ride and shoot, and Hastings immediately applied to join the Suffolk Imperial Yeomanry. He was accepted, and after two weeks of training the regiment were given horses and boarded the S.S. Goth Castle to South Africa. The ship reached Cape Town after three weeks, and the regiment disembarked. Their horses were considered too weak to be ridden, and so they were instead discharged and either put down or given to other soldiers. Hastings did not enjoy his time in the army; the weather was poor, the orders given were confusing and they were provided with minimal equipment. Hastings was made a scout, a duty he thoroughly enjoyed; it meant that he got to the targeted farms first, and had time to steal chickens and other food before the Royal Military Police arrived (as looting was a criminal offence). Hastings was not a model soldier; as well as looting, he estimated that by the time he left the army he had "been charged and tried upon almost every offence known to military law". After two years of fighting, the Treaty of Vereeniging was signed in 1902, bringing an end to the Second Boer War, and his regiment was returned to London and demobilised. By the time Hastings returned, he had decided to become a barrister. There were various problems with this aim: in particular, he had no money, and the training for barristers was extremely expensive. Despite this, he refused to consider a change of career, and joined the Middle Temple as a student on 4 November 1901. It is uncertain why