While waiting for the preparation of a serious meal, we set to work to grill a few chops. They have scarcely been on the embers more than two minutes, when we hear Pom! pom! pom!
There is no time for breakfast. To horse! We swallow our raw cutlets, and gallop off.
Four men stay behind to strike the camp, and we take up a position to the south-east of Brandfort, on the kopjes that command the plain.
In the distance, about eight kilometres off, we see the English convoys already making for Brandfort. They are pretty confident.
To the right, a battery, of which we can distinguish the escort, silences the cannon nearest us by killing the gunners. Then a second battery advances at a trot on the left in the plain, and crosses the fire of the first.
The Boers watch this manoeuvre with great interest, discussing it and giving their opinions on it. Then, as the battery halts and takes up a position, slowly but surely, they all make for their horses.
Scarcely are the first shells fired before they are in their saddles, decamping at full speed.
Our two 75-millimetre guns come up, and throw a few shells from a distance, with no result.
It is always the same. They watch the enemy's operations without interfering, and when they want to act, it is too late.
It is two o'clock. Our waggons went off long ago, but the road is encumbered with a long string of vehicles.