The doubt is soon decided against us.  We are crossing the flat, kopjes in front and a slope on the right.  Suddenly several guns open from the kopjes ahead, the shells dropping well among us.  At this coarse behaviour we pause disgusted.  An A.D.C. galops up.  We are to make a reconnaissance (hateful word!) on the right to see if the slope is occupied.  “Will the Guides kindly ...?” and the officer waves his hand airily towards the hill and bows.  We are quite well aware that the slope is occupied, for we have seen Boers take up their position there, and several experimental shots have already been fired by them.  However, “anything to oblige” is the only possible answer, and the squadron right wheels and breaks into a canter.  Once on the rise the bullets come whizzing through our ranks quick enough.  Down goes one man, then another, then another.  Maydon of the Times, who is with us, drops, but only stunned by a grazing bullet, as it turns out.  The Life Guards deploying on our left catch it hot, and many saddles are emptied.

A charge at this time would have scattered the Boers instantly (they were very weak) and saved both time and lives.  Instead of this, however, it is thought more advisable to keep every one standing still in order to afford a more satisfactory test of Boer marksmanship.  It is very irksome.  The air seems full of the little shrill-voiced messengers.  Our ponies wince and shiver; they know perfectly well what the sound means.  At last the fact that the hills are held is revealed to the sagacity of our commanders, and we are moved aside and the guns once more come into action.

It is easy (thank goodness!) to be wise after the event.  I find every one very discontented over this action, and especially the cavalry part of it.  Had we made a good wide cast instead of a timid little half-cock movement, and come round sharp, we should have intercepted the Boer convoy.  As it is, we lose two more hours at this last stand which brings us till late in the afternoon, and soon afterwards, on approaching the river, we see five miles off the whole Dutch column deliberately marching away eastward.  Our failure stares us in the face, and we see with disgust that we have been bluffed and fooled and held in check all day by some sixty or eighty riflemen, while the main body, waggons, guns, and all, are marching away across our front.  “The day’s proceedings,” says one of our officers to me with laughable deliberation, “afford a very exact representation of the worst possible way of carrying out the design in hand.”

LETTER XIV

BLOEMFONTEIN

My last letter was written after Poplar Grove, and we marched in here six days later on the 13th.  Of the fighting on the way I can give you no account, as I was knocked up with a bad chill and had to go with the ambulance.  Unluckily we had two nights of pouring rain, and as I had left behind my blanket and had only my Boer mackintosh (with the red lining), I fared very badly and got drenched both nights and very cold.  This brought on something which the doctor described as “not real dysentery.”  However, whatever it was (or wasn’t), it made me as weak as a baby, and I was transferred to our ambulance, in which I lay, comfortable enough, but only vaguely conscious of my surroundings.