Jannie met de hoepel bein!
Then with a whistle:—
Zwaar draa—alle en de ein kant—
The Captain, thinking furiously, found his mind turn to a camp in the Karroo, months before; an engine that had halted in that waste, and a woman with brown hair, early grizzled—an extraordinary woman.... Yes, but as soon as they had dropped the flat-topped kopje behind its neighbour he must hurry back and report.... A woman with grey eyes and black eyelashes.... The Boers would probably be massed on those two kopjes. How soon dare he break into a canter?... A woman with a queer cadence in her speech.... It was not more than five miles home by the straight road—
“Even when we were children we learned not to go back by the way we had come.”
The sentence came back to him, self-shouted, so clearly that he almost turned to see if the scouts had heard. The two flat-topped kopjes behind him were covered by a long ridge. The camp lay due south. He had only to follow the road to the Nek—a notch, unscouted as he recalled now, between the two hills.
He wheeled his men up a long valley.
“Excuse me, sir, that ain’t our road!” said the sergeant. “Once we get over this rise, straight on, we come into direct touch with the ’elio, on that flat bit o’ road there they ’elioed us goin’ out.”
“But we aren’t going to get in touch with them just now. Come along, and come quick.”
“What’s the meaning of this?” said a private in the rear. “What’s ’e doin’ this detour for? We shan’t get in for hours an’ hours.”