"Do you know what commandos are here now?"
"They are principally Colonial rebels, some from the west and some from the south."
"You have the Philippolis commando here, have you not?"
"We had till yesterday, and then they were summoned to go to Steynsburg, for they say that one of our columns is advancing against Dordrecht."
"That is lucky, for my railway pass says that I am going to join that commando. Now that I find they are gone I cannot report myself, and therefore escape questioning. How many Boers are there in and around here?"
"From a thousand to twelve hundred."
"How have they been behaving?"
The landlord shrugged his shoulders. "They take pretty well what they want, and give bits of paper which they say will be paid when the war is over; they mean, out of the money they expect to get from our government as an indemnity. Of course we don't look at it in that light, and only keep them in the hope that they will be a proof of the losses that we have suffered, and that our government will take them up when they finally thrash the Boers."
"And where are these twelve hundred men?"