The operation, which proved perfectly successful, lasted an hour and a half. The doctor, a Scotchman called Dunlop, assured us that our poor friend was out of danger.
At daybreak on the 15th we started, the Colonel for the camp, we for Brandfort. It was terribly hot, and we were in a hurry, for a rumour of Lord Roberts' arrival had got about. It seemed likely that there would be some more lively work on hand very soon, and we were anxious to get through the drudgery of revictualling as quickly as possible.
In the evening we reached Boshof, where a good many wounded had been brought since our last visit. We rode all day on the 16th, slept in the bush, and started again at daybreak on the 17th. Towards noon we took a rest of an hour and a half, and consumed a tin of corned beef.
It was nearly two when we mounted again under a sky of fire, not to draw rein till we reached Brandfort at ten o'clock on Sunday morning, save for a compulsory halt of two hours from three to five in the morning, when the darkness made it impossible for us to continue our journey in the trackless sand and tangled bush.
We had been in the saddle twenty-six hours out of thirty to accomplish our journey of 120 miles, and had taken three and a half days, riding over sixty kilometres a day, in average heat of from 38° to 40° (centigrade), without fodder and almost without water, in a wild, unknown country.
Our horses were dead-beat, and we entered the village on foot, dragging the poor brutes by their bridles. What was our stupefaction to hear that the siege of Kimberley had been raised without any engagement the very day after our departure!
The surprise, it seems, had been complete. There was a cry of 'The English!' and then a panic, which barely left time to carry off the guns and waggons. Part of the ammunition was left behind, some provisions, Long Tom's break and its platform. The Colonel had escaped with Breda. But in the confusion one of our comrades, Coste, was lost, and eventually joined Cronje.
A story which amused us all at the time may be told here. A volunteer, no longer in his first youth--well over fifty, in fact--had come to join the Colonel just at the time of the English attack. A very eccentric character, and slightly bemused by drink, he found himself in the thick of the stampede, without any clear idea of what it was all about.
Suddenly the Burghers, who had never seen him in the camp before, struck by his odd behaviour, demanded his passports. Not understanding a word of Dutch, he had some difficulty in making out what they wanted.
At last he produced the necessary paper. The pandours of the moment scrutinized them carefully, then, shaking their heads in the fashion which among all races implies negation, they said: