I nodded, though it occurred to me directly afterwards that he could not see the nod; but I showed him that I fully understood by bearing off to the left, crawling steadily and softly, and feeling Denham’s hand come tap, tap regularly upon my heel. All the time I had a presentiment that the Boers must be lying around by the hundred.
In another minute I knew we must be close to oxen, for I could hear them ruminating; and, convinced that a wagon would be before us, with perhaps a dozen men underneath, I bore still more to my left, with Denham following close, till I stopped once more, knowing that horses must be just in front.
I made a short pause now, longing to ask my comrade’s advice; but I dared not whisper. So, feeling that probably there would only be about fifty yards of perilous ground to pass over before we had cleared the Boer lines, I did what I imagined was best—bore off a little to the right as I advanced—my idea being to get back towards the oxen and pass softly by the side of the wagon which I believed must be close at hand.
“They’ll be asleep,” I thought, “and I may get past.”
It was all a chance, I knew; but we had been lucky so far, and I hoped that fortune would still favour us. In this spirit I still kept on, crawling now very slowly, till suddenly I let myself subside, for my hand had come in contact with the butt of a rifle lying on the ground.
Denham too must have taken the alarm, for I felt him drawing steadily at my heel, which I read to mean retreat. But I felt there was no retreat, knowing that we had crept right in among a number of sleeping men. So I let myself slowly subside, lying on my chest; and in the effort to cross my arms and let them rest beneath my chin my left elbow struck sharply against a sleeper’s face, making him start so violently that he kicked his neighbour, and in an instant there was a furious burst of Boer Dutch oaths and imprecations.
“Quiet!” said a deep, severe voice in Dutch. “There, you’ve roused the patrol.”
My heart sank, for there was the hurried tramp of footsteps approaching, and, worse than all, the gleaming of a lantern, which lit up the heavy body of a man lying right across the way I sought to go, while right and left, and within a foot of me, were two more burly figures. They were all in motion now, and as the lantern was borne closer it was thrown open, and, in what one of my neighbours would have called an augenblick, I saw in the background on one side the tilt of a wagon, and on the other the dim forms of horses.
My agony, in spite of feeling Denham’s hand pressing firmly on my heel, seemed to have culminated; but the worst was to come, and I shivered, for a high-pitched voice cried in Dutch:
“Hwhat’s all this? Didn’t I tell ye to loy still and slape till it was time to start? Why, ye blundering, thick-headed idiots, you have made enough noise to rouse the Englanders.”