Boom! Boom! Boom! Cannon at last!
But it is far away, over at Tucker’s side. There are little white puffs on the distant green hills. Those are shells bursting. If you look through your glasses you will see—eight miles off—a British battery in action. Sometimes a cloud of dust rises over it. That is a Boer shell which has knocked up the dust. No Boers can be seen from here.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
It becomes monotonous. “Old Tucker is getting it hot!” Bother old Tucker, let us push on to Brandfort.
On again over the great plain, the firing dying away on the right. We have had a gun knocked off its wheels and twelve men hit over there. But now Hutton’s turning movement is complete, and they close in on the left of Brandfort. A pom-pom quacks like some horrid bird among the hills. Our horse artillery are banging away. White spurts of shrapnel rise along the ridge. The leading infantry bend their backs and quicken their pace. We gallop to the front, but the resistance has collapsed. The mounted men are riding forward and the guns are silent. Long, sunlit hills stretch peacefully before us.
I ride through the infantry again. “The bloody blister on my toe has bust.” “This blasted water-bottle!” Every second man has a pipe between his parched lips.
The town is to the right, and two miles of plain intervene. On the plain a horseman is rounding up some mares and foals. I recognize him as I pass—Burdett-Coutts—a well-known figure in society. Mr. Maxwell of the “Morning Post” suggests that we ride to the town and chance it. “Our men are sure to be there.” No sign of them across the plain, but we will try. He outrides me, but courteously waits, and we enter the town together. Yes, it’s all right; there’s a Rimington Scout in the main street—a group of them, in fact.
A young Boer, new caught, stands among the horsemen. He is discomposed—not much. A strong, rather coarse face; well-dressed; might appear, as he stands, in an English hunting-field as a young yeoman farmer.
“Comes of being fond of the ladies,” said the Australian sergeant.
“Wanted to get her out of the town,” said the Boer.