The sailors were already in their train, and only prevented from starting by the want of an engine.  The infantry and artillery were to start in a few hours.  It is rather an unsatisfactory business, though the arrival of more powerful forces will soon restore the situation.  Stormberg is itself an important railway junction.  For more than a week the troops have been working night and day to put it in a state of defence.  Little redoubts have been built on the kopjes, entrenchments have been dug, and the few houses near the station are already strongly fortified.  I was shown one of these by the young officer in charge.  The approaches were, cleared of everything except wire fences and entanglements; the massive walls were loopholed, the windows barricaded with sandbags, and the rooms inside broken one into the other for convenience in moving about.

Its garrison of twenty-five men and its youthful commander surveyed the work with pride.  They had laid in stores of all kinds for ten days, and none doubted that Fort Chabrol, as they called it, would stand a gallant siege.  Then suddenly had come the message to evacuate and retreat.  So it was with the others.  The train with the naval detachment and its guns steamed off, and we gave it a feeble cheer.  Another train awaited the Berkshires.  The mounted infantry were already on the march.  ’Mayn’t we even blow up this lot?’ said a soldier, pointing to the house he had helped to fortify.  But there was no such order, only this one which seemed to pervade the air:  ’The enemy are coming.  Retreat—­retreat—­retreat!’ The stationmaster—­one of the best types of Englishmen to be found on a long journey—­was calm and cheerful.

‘No more traffic north of this,’ he said.  ’Yours was the last train through from De Aar.  I shall send away all my men by the special to-night.  And that’s the end as far as Stormberg goes.’

‘And you?’

’Oh, I shall stay.  I have lived here for twelve years, and am well known.  Perhaps I may be able to protect the company’s property.’

While we waited the armoured train returned from patrolling—­an engine between two carriages cloaked from end to end with thick plates and slabs of blue-grey iron.  It had seen nothing of the advancing Boers, but, like us and like the troops, it had to retire southwards.  There were fifty Uitlanders from Johannesburg on the platform.  They had been employed entrenching; now they were bundled back again towards East London.

So we left Stormberg in much anger and some humiliation, and jolted away towards the open sea, where British supremacy is not yet contested by the Boer.  At Molteno we picked up a hundred volunteers—­fine-looking fellows all eager to encounter the enemy, but much surprised at the turn events had taken.  They, too, were ordered to fall back.  The Boers were advancing, and to despondent minds even the rattle of the train seemed to urge ‘Retreat, retreat, retreat.’