Started at five with Yeomanry, Bushmen, and Buffs, as before, but were delayed two hours outside town, waiting for some traction-engines, which puffed asthmatically at the bottom of a drift, unable to get up. Marched rapidly for sixteen miles (most of the country burnt by veldt fires), over the same difficult road, and (for a luxury) encamped while it was still light. Washed in a river with great zest. Fresh mutton for supper. Turned in with orders for reveillé at 4 A.M. But at 11.30 P.M. we were all awakened by "Come on, get up and harness up." "Why, what's the time?" "11.30." However, up we got, not knowing why, tossed on harness, and started straight away back for Lindley, supposing they were being attacked. It was a hard march over those detestable drifts, in pitch dark and freezing cold, with one halt only of ten minutes. The centre driver has a trying time in bad places of the road, for at steep bits on the down grade, if the wheelers get at all out of control, he has the pole bearing down on him, either punching his horses and making them kick, or probing for vulnerable places in his own person. He has the responsibility of keeping his traces just so that they are not slack, and yet that the horses are not in draught and pulling the gun or waggon down. The lead-driver has to pick the road and, with one eye on the gun just ahead, to judge a pace which will suit the wheel-driver, who at such moments must have a fairly free hand. All three live always in a fierce glare of criticism from the gunners riding behind, who in their nasty moments are apt to draw abusive comparisons between the relative dangers of shell-fire and riding on a waggon. By the way, there is always a healthy antagonism between gunners and drivers. When one class speaks of the other there is generally an adjective prefixed.
July 1.—Sunday.—We marched into camp before dawn blear-eyed and hungry, to find to our disgust that there was no hurry after all. It seems an order had been received for the whole Battery to march away this morning, to join some column or other, so they sent a messenger to recall us. Meanwhile a countermanding order came to "Stand fast." So here I am, at 8 A.M., sitting against my harness in the blessed sunlight, warm, fed, sleepy, and rather irritated. What is going to happen I don't know. It's no use writing the rumours.
(Later.)—A sudden order to harness up. Did so, and were all ready, when we were told to take it off again. It seems General Clements has come up near here with a division, and they want to finish off De Wet at once. A quiet day. I foraged in the town in the afternoon, but got nothing, though I heard of mealy biscuits at one cottage.
Later on we found a cottage kept by an Englishwoman, who gave us delicious tea at 6d. a cup, and again in the evening porridge at 6d. a plate. There was a number of mixed soldiers in there, all packed round the room, which was dark and smoky, and full also of squalling children. The way she kept her temper and fed us was wonderful. It is safe to say that nowadays one can always eat any amount at any time of day. The service biscuit is the best of its kind, I daresay, but not very satisfying, and meat is not plentiful. We have never yet been on full rations. Five is the full number of biscuits. We generally get three or four. Sometimes the meat-ration is a "Maconochie," which is a tin of preserved meat and vegetables of a very juicy and fatty nature, most fascinating when you first know it, but apt to grow tinny and chemical to the palate.
[ CHAPTER VI. ]
BETHLEHEM.
July 2.—Reveillé 5 A.M. Harnessed up, and afterwards marched out and joined a column of troops under General Paget. We have with us some Yorkshire Light Infantry, Munster Fusiliers, Yeomanry, Bushmen, and the 38th Field Battery. Where we are going we don't know, but I suppose after De Wet.[A]
[[Footnote A:] Without knowing it at the time, we were joining in General Hunter's big enveloping movement, by which all the scattered commandos in this part of the Free State were to be driven into the mountains on the Basuto border and there surrounded. Paget's brigade (the 20th) was part of the cordon, which was gradually drawn closer by the concentric marches of columns under him, and General Clements, Rundle, Boyes, Bruce Hamilton, and Hunter himself. The climax was the surrender of about 5000 Boers under Prinsloo at Fouriesberg on July 29, a success much impaired by the escape of De Wet from the fast-closing trap. For the sake of clearness I append this note; but I leave my diary as I wrote it, when our knowledge of events rarely went beyond a foggy speculation.]
(8.30 A.M.)—We have marched for about two hours to the top of a range of hills which surrounds the town; there is firing on the right and left, and the Infantry are advancing in extended order. Our right section has just gone into action. A big drove of wild-looking Boer ponies has come stampeding up to the column with some of our mounted men vainly trying to corner them.
(1.30 P.M.)—The battle is, as usual, unintelligible to the humble unit, but the force is advancing slowly, the Yorkshire Light Infantry and Munster Fusiliers on either hand of us. Our section is in action now. We have just taken our waggon to the firing line and brought back the team. The corporal's horse stepped in a hole just as we were reaching the guns and turned a complete somersault. He is all right, but his was our second mishap, as the near wheeler fell earlier in the day, and the driver was dragged some yards before we could stop. The ground is very dangerous, full of holes, some of them deep and half-covered with grass. Another driver is up, but the former is only a bit shaken, I think. Our section has silenced a Boer gun in three shots, at 4200 yards, a good bit of work, and a credit to Lieutenant Bailey as a judge of range. The right section also cleared the kopje they fired at, but had a narrow escape afterwards, coming suddenly, when on the move, under the fire of Boer guns, of whose presence they were ignorant, the shells falling thick but not bursting. Bivouacked at four on the veldt. The Boers had retired from the line they held. A long ride to water after unharnessing; nothing much to eat. Williams and I have taken to ending the day by boiling tea (from tablets) over the embers of the cook's fire, or on one of our own if we have any fuel, which is very seldom. How the cooks get their wood is a mystery to me. The Kaffir drivers always have it, too, though there are no visible trees. We always seem to sit up late, short though our nights are. A chilly little group gathers sleepily round the embers, watching mess-tins full of nondescript concoctions balanced cunningly in the hot corners, and gossiping of small camp affairs or large strategical movements of which we know nothing. The brigade camp-fires twinkle faintly through the gloom. A line of veldt-fire is sure to be glowing in the distance, looking like the lights of a sea-side town as seen from the sea. The only sound is of mules shuffling and jingling round the waggons.