"The water seems the most serious item."
"Well, it is not as serious as it looks. A lot of water comes into one of the mines, enough to keep a big pumping-engine at work, and anyhow there is sufficient to supply our animals with drinking water, though the authorities have had to forbid its use for watering gardens and that sort of thing. What were the first battles like?"
"They were the same in each case. The Boers were entrenched on kopjes, and as we could not leave these in rear we had to storm them. The fighting lasted a very short time, but the Grenadiers in the first fight, and the Naval Brigade in the second, lost very heavily. The Modder was quite different. The Boers were hidden in the bushes that fringed the river, and they had on rising ground behind a number of guns. The fighting began at five o'clock in the morning, and it was not until nearly five in the evening that the regiments on our left got across the river. They maintained themselves there till dark, and the Boers, fearing that the whole force would cross in the middle of the night and cut off their retreat, retired silently, and carried off their guns. We won the passage of the river, but it was in no way a decisive victory. And so you have had no fighting yet?"
"Very little. On the 25th we made a sortie with one troop of our men and some of the Cape Police. Forty of our fellows stormed one of their redoubts, and we brought in thirty-three prisoners. That was encouraging, and though Major Scott-Turner, who commanded us, was wounded, he led us out again the day before yesterday. We could just hear a low rumble, and guessed that Methuen was fighting, so we thought it would be well to keep the Boers round here and prevent their sending reinforcements to Spytfontein, but I expect the Boers had thought that we would be likely to make some such move, for they were prepared for us. We gained ground at first, but they were soon on the spot in great force, and the rifle-fire was terrible. Poor Scott-Turner was killed and twenty-one of our fellows, and twenty-eight wounded. So it was a bad affair altogether, and I don't think we shall try any more sorties of that kind.
"If it hadn't been for that I dare say we should have come out directly we heard your firing; but after our experience of their Mauser fire, it would have been folly to get within range of an unknown strength of Boers posted on a hill. So we waited till there was a fair chance of our succouring whoever there might be without running any extraordinary risk, but we had an anxious day of it. It did not seem that any considerable force could have got through, and yet it was evident that, whoever it was, was able to hold his ground. We could make out that little hut with the glasses, and it seemed to us that it was the point against which the Boers were firing, though at that distance we could not see the smoke of your rifles, firing as you did from the side facing the hill."
They had by this time reached the line of defence.
"Now, sir," the officer said, "if you will mount my horse one of the troopers will ride with you to the commandant's quarters, and will bring my horse back with him."
The colonel was in his office. During the greater part of the day he passed his time at the look-out at Wesselton mine. It was erected on the top of the mine head-gear, a hundred and twenty feet above the level. This lofty look-out commanded a view of the whole country round. Yorke was shown in at once.
"I have the honour to be the bearer of a despatch from Lord Methuen, sir," Yorke said as he came.