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At the beginning of the retreat, a field-cornet came to ask my advice, as often happened. He disregarded it, as always happened. I wanted them to destroy the reservoirs, burn the forage, and poison the wells all along the line of retreat.[#] He would never consent.
[#] The writer apparently made this monstrous suggestion quite seriously.--TRANSLATOR.
Later on, when I was a prisoner, an English officer of rank, who had taken part in the march across the Orange Free State, told me he had suffered terribly from thirst, and he assured me that if the measures I had advised had been taken, Roberts' 40,000 men, for the most part mounted, would never have achieved their task.
But at the moment time failed me to prove to the brave field-cornet, by the teaching of history in general, and of the wars in Spain in particular, what excellent results might be obtained by such a method of defence. Minutes were becoming precious, and we made off as fast as we could, while in the distance we saw half our convoy blazing, fired by bursting shells.
Towards half-past nine we lay down on the veldt, without pitching any tents, and keeping a sharp look-out. By eleven the last of the Boer stragglers had passed. Colonel Gourko and Lieutenant Thomson had been made prisoners.
On the 8th we were astir at daybreak. Our three boys went off to find our beasts, which had strayed far in search of pasture, on account of the scanty herbage, in spite of their hobbles. They were all recovered, however, with the exception of one mule, which remained deaf to every summons, a most inconsiderate proceeding on his part, seeing that the English were at our heels.
Time being precious, we started off as well as we could with our reduced convoy. Suddenly one of our boys, big John, stood tiptoe on his long feet, gave a sweeping glance around, and went quietly on his way. Half an hour later, he began again to increase in height and to study the horizon.... We could see absolutely nothing. As my acquaintance with John was slight, I imagined that he probably suffered from some nervous affection. But this time he sniffed the air loudly, and, without a word, darted off obliquely from our track.
An hour passed, and he did not return. Grave doubts of his fidelity began to afflict us. At last, two hours later, we noticed a speck on the horizon, then two. It was John with the missing mule. John is an angel--a black angel!
All the farms we passed on the road had hoisted the white flag. At noon we reached the point where the road to Bloemfontein bifurcates. A few Burghers were gathered there. We pitched our tents.