: The Battle of August 5th.
The sketch above will explain the nature of the operation which led to Colonel Plumer's victory on August 5th.
"His death is to me like the snatching away of a pleasing book half read.
"And Kershaw was the very type of a cool, brave, energetic officer. His loss to our little force is irreparable."
On the night of August 10th, Baden-Powell rode thirty miles into Buluwayo to report to General Carrington that the enemy in the Matopos were completely broken up and probably willing to surrender. From thence onward to September 6th he was on the sick-list—fever and dysentery—but he was pulled up on the 7th by "a better tonic than any which the combined medical faculty of Buluwayo could devise," in the shape of orders from the General to take charge of a column then under Ridley in the Somabula Forest. Next day he took three of Plumer's men as escort, and set off, in his shirt-sleeves as usual, for a hundred miles ride through a wild country. They had various small adventures on the way—amongst them being a meeting with a nigger who told Baden-Powell a beautifully conceived and executed lie about a great battle which had not taken place. There are some interesting and significant entries in his journal about this time. Here is one as to the making of bread under difficulties:—
"I lay up during the heat of the day with a waterproof sheet spread over a thorn-bush as a shelter from the sun. The men dug water in the sand, washed, and baked bread. To bake bread, lay your coat on the ground, inside upwards, mix the flour and water in it (it doesn't show when you put the coat on again); for yeast or baking powder use the juice of the toddy palm or Eno's Fruit Salt to make a light dough; scrape a circle in the ashes of the fire, flop your lump of dough, spread fine sand all round and all over it, then heap the embers of the fire on to it; in half an hour an excellent flat loaf of bread results. It requires scrubbing with a horse-brush before you eat it."
Under date 11th occurs a passage often quoted by those who have written about Baden-Powell—a passage which, I think, is more indicative of the true character of the man than anything he has done, said, or written.
"September 11th.—My anniversary of joining Her Majesty's Service, 1876-1896—twenty years. I always think more of this anniversary than of that of my birth, and I could not picture a more enjoyable way of spending it. I am here, out in the wilds, with three troopers. They are all Afrikanders, that is, Colonial born, one an ex-policeman, another a mining engineer (went to England with me in 1889 on board the Mexican), the third an electrical engineer from Johannesburg,—all of them good men on the veldt, and good fighting men. We are nearly eighty miles from Buluwayo and thirty from the nearest troops. I have rigged up a shelter from the sun with my blanket, a rock, and a thorn-bush; thirteen thousand flies are unfortunately staying with me, and are awfully attentive. One of us is always on the look-out by night and by day. Our stock of food, crockery, cooking utensils, and bedding does not amount to anything much, as we carry it all on our saddles.
