"Let's get"—"Go astern"—"Sections about"—and we did so, back behind the kopje, linked horses, and crawled up again on our hands and knees.
"First thing," says I, quoting our Adjutant, "is to kalkulate the numbers of the enemy."
"Twenty thousand," says Billy, who always did reckon a bit large. "Make it hundreds," says the Yank, sneering—"and I wouldn't mind betting a pint myself that there was the best part of two dozen of 'em."
"Next point," says I, "who are they?"
"I bleeve they're Highlanders, after all," says Billy; "see the way they're lowering whisky out of them bottles."
"Well then," says the Yank, "you'd better ride up and say you're the General, and they'll drop the whisky and run."
"Highlanders," says I, "don't care a cuss for Boers nor Generals, but say you're the Provost Marshal and they won't stop running this side of Kimberley."
"Those men, sir," says the Yank, "air not Highlanders. Billy's eyes was took with them bottles and got no further. Those men don't wear leg curtains, nor even loud checked bags. They air Boers." And by Jove he was right.
"Well then," says I, getting back to point three, "what's their position?"
"Straight there," says the Yank. "Mostly lying on their stummicks," says Billy.