I drew the sergeant’s attention to it directly, and he nodded.
“That settles it at once,” he said. “Here have I been telling myself it was all my fancy; but now you hear it I feel it must be fact.”
“I hear it; so does my man, and the trooper who rides next to me.”
“Yes; and we can all hear it now,” said the Sergeant. “Well, it’s plain enough. We’re in a tight place, my lad, for there’s only one answer to it, and it explains why the Colonel hasn’t sent us some support, for he must have heard the firing.”
“What do you make of it, then?”
“That the Doppers are better soldiers than we give them credit for being, and they’ve got round to the Colonel’s rear somehow, and shut him in this giant hogs’-trough of a valley.”
“Think so?” I said anxiously, as I thought of the Lieutenant.
“I’m sure of it. Now then; that’s not our business. Halt! Right about! Take position behind those stones. Dismount and cover the retreat. Here they come.”
The clatter of the horses of the other party came plainly to our ears as we took our places ready to reply to the Boers’ fire. I had intended to have another look at the wounded man before this took place, and was therefore much disappointed; but there was no help for it, and I stood with Sandho fairly well sheltered behind a stone five feet high, upon which my rifle rested. Then the party we were to relieve cantered by, with two men wounded and supported on their horses; and as I watched the puffs of smoke and listened to the bullets spattering and splaying the rocks, with the buzz of the high shots now sounding so familiar, I wondered at being able to take it all so coolly.
“I suppose it’s because I’m beginning to get used to it,” I thought. Then I began to speculate as to what would happen now if the sergeant was right, and we were to be attacked front and rear; and what it would feel like if I were hit, as seemed very likely now that the enemy were getting so near. But I glanced right and left at my companions, just in time, to see the Sergeant start back, to stand shaking his right hand vigorously, and directly after I saw the blood beginning to drip from his finger-ends.