The Colonel had never ceased fortifying and improving Dublin Hill, and there is no doubt that at the end of July his efforts had resulted in a very sound and efficient post.
Everything pointed to peace and quiet when, late on the afternoon of July 27th, the ominous 'order' call broke the stillness of the crisp wintry evening.
'Come for orders! Come for orders! Hurry up, hurry up; come for orders!'
Who, that soldiered through those long weary months, but must remember that infernal call? For it was characteristic of the war, and owing, doubtless, to the immense tract of country over which it was waged, that not only the rank and file, but even the officers, with one or two exceptions, knew little or nothing of what was going on. Consequently one never knew what the next minute would bring forth, and waited accordingly with ears at tension for the strains of the bugle, whose notes might portend nothing or everything.
On this occasion they were the prelude to one of the most stirring periods in the history of the war—the first great De Wet hunt. It is beside the purport of this volume to discuss the advantages of British infantry pursuing mounted Boers. It has often been maintained that the result of such an apparently hopeless hare-and-tortoise sort of procedure would have been successful on this occasion but for the fact of the unblocking of Olifant's Nek. On the other hand, there are not wanting many who are equally prepared to argue that, although this bolt-hole being open may have facilitated the guerilla's escape, that astute leader would easily have found some other nook or cranny quite sufficient for his purpose had it been shut; while, if the worst had come to the worst, from his point of view, he could, at the sacrifice of his waggons and guns, have dissolved his commando in the night, only to unite again at some more suitable and less column-infected time and place.
At the time we knew nothing of all this; all we knew was that some big move was in progress, for, as we neared the railway next day, train after train steamed through, reminiscent of the vicinity of Epsom on a Derby Day, but that was all. Where we were going, when we were going, why we were going, were all questions quite beyond our ken—not to be answered, indeed, until some days later, when an officer on General Hunter's Staff told us what it was all about.
Our march to the railway on the 28th was a long and trying one, variously computed at from twenty-one to twenty-three miles. Whatever its exact length may have been is immaterial; it was the method in which it was conducted that was so desperately trying. After the usual sketchy apology for a breakfast, the column moved off with the Somersets as advance-guard, and 'F' and 'G' company of the Dublins as rearguard. From a variety of causes the progress was uncommonly slow, and, no halt being made of greater length than a few minutes, the men of the rearguard had a trying time, for any one who has marched behind a column of waggons, &c., miles in length, knows that one practically gets no halt at all from these five-minute snatches, owing to the necessity of continually closing up. It was quite dark when the rearguard hove in sight of the passing trains, and then, to make matters thoroughly uncomfortable, some half-dozen waggons stuck firmly in a snipe-bog, scarcely a mile from their destination.
Corporal Tierney and Chef Burst.