The clear blue vault of heaven was suddenly overcast by clouds, which gradually assumed the frowning face of my colonel. "What? You mean to say, Mr. Forethought, the Boers have crossed?" But, luckily for me, before more could be said, the face began slowly to fade away like that of the Cheshire Puss in "Alice in Wonderland," leaving nothing but the awful frown across the sky. This too finally dissolved, and the whole scene changed. I had another dream.
Sixth Dream.[ToC]
"Sweet are the uses of adversity."
Once more was I fated to essay the task of defending Duffer's Drift. This time I had twenty-two lessons below my belt to help me out, and in the oblivion of my dream I was saved that sense of monotony which by now may possibly have overtaken you, "gentle reader."
After sending out the patrols, and placing a guard on Waschout Hill, as already described, and whilst the stores were being collected, I considered deeply what position I should take up, and walked up to the top of Waschout Hill to spy out the land. On the top I found a Kaffir kraal, which I saw would assist me much to concealment should I decide to hold this hill. This I was very inclined to do, but after a few minutes' trial of the shape of the ground, with the help of some men walking about down below, and my eyes a little above ground-level—I found that its convexity was such that, to see and fire on the drift and the approach on the south side, I should have to abandon the top of the hill, and so the friendly concealment of the Kaffir huts, and take up a position on the open hillside some way down. This was, of course, quite feasible, especially if I held a position at the top of the hill as well, near the huts on the east and southeast sides; but, as it would be impossible to really conceal ourselves on the bare hillside, it meant giving up all idea of surprising the enemy, which I wished to do. I must, therefore, find some other place which would lend itself to easy and good concealment, and also have the drift or its approaches under close rifle-fire. But where to find such a place?
As I stood deep in thought, considering this knotty problem, an idea gently wormed itself into my mind, which I at once threw out again as being absurd and out of the question. This idea was—to hold the river bed and banks on each side of the drift! To give up all idea of command, and, instead of seeking the nearest high ground, which comes as natural to the student of tactics as rushing for a tree does to a squirrel, to take the lowest ground, even though it should be all among thick cover, instead of being nicely in the open.
No, it was absolutely revolutionary, and against every canon I had ever read or heard of; it was evidently the freak of a sorely tried and worried brain. I would none of it, and I put it firmly from me. But the more I argued to myself the absurdity of it, the more this idea obtained possession of me. The more I said it was impossible, the more allurements were spread before me in its favor, until each of my conscientious objections was enmeshed and smothered in a network of specious reasons as to the advantages of the proposal.
I resisted, I struggled, but finally fell to temptation, dressed up in the plausible guise of reason. I would hold the river-bed.