In his official report Colonel Lumsden sums up all this in a few brief sentences, having matters of more serious weight on his mind at the moment:

Our departure for Spytfontein was delayed from 19th to 21st ult.—on which date we left Bloemfontein, halting at the Glen en route, arriving at Spytfontein midday on the 22nd ult. There I reported to Colonel Ross, who commands our corps, consisting of the following units, of which the approximate strength is given:[[4]]

Lumsden’s Horse240
Loch’s Horse (a squadron)220
West Riding and Oxford L.I. Companies of M.I.220
8th Battalion M.I.420
____
Total1,100

Late that evening I received orders to hold myself in readiness at 4.30 A.M. for Kranz Kraal, whither we marched in company with the 14th Brigade, our object being to protect a bridge about eight miles distant on the main road to Bloemfontein, which the Boers intended to destroy. We were only just in time to prevent them carrying out their object, by getting there before them, with only a couple of casualties among the Australian contingent. We spent the night at the bridge, returning the next day to Spytfontein. While at the latter place we were fortunate in securing a few more Government remounts to replace several unfit horses. I may mention that at Spytfontein we were in easy sight of the Boer outposts, being only eight miles distant from Brandfort. A long flat plain separated the Boer boundary from our own, and their scouts were distinctly visible to us every morning. Nothing eventful occurred during the next few days, but on the 30th we received our baptism of fire as far as we are personally concerned.

CHAPTER VIII
THE BAPTISM OF FIRE—LUMSDEN’S HORSE AT
OSPRUIT (HOUTNEK)

How often ignorant critics have sneered at that phrase ‘the baptism of fire,’ which expresses finely, with literary completeness and force, a truth of which men who have never been in the front line of battle can know nothing! However much the phrase may have been degraded by melodramatic application, it is a gem in its clearness of thought and perfection of finish. The soldier’s first fight is a plunge from which he emerges a new being. Whether the change may be for better or worse depends probably on temperament and previous associations. The fire of battle does not purify a sinner or sear the soul of a saint, but neither is quite the same after as he was before passing through it. He has seen things which, in some subtle way, unfelt, perhaps, and certainly unacknowledged, will influence the remaining years of his life. It is not only because he has looked death in the face—that is a common enough experience elsewhere and leaves no perceptible trace—but he has stood where dear comrades fell beside him in the midst of scenes that at other times would be heartrending, and, as if in a state of complete detachment from himself, he has passed callous through it all. The braver a man is, the more surely some consciousness of that strange state clings to him. To call it selfish indifference or the numbness of fear, as some insolent ignoramus might, would be to falsify the history of war. Selfish men and cowards do not walk with eyes open into the very jaws of death to help a wounded comrade, nor would dazed brains be capable of the swift thought that characterises soldiers in the direst danger. Yet men who at such times have done deeds worthy of the Cross for Valour will [Blank Page] not be able to tell you what sensations possessed them, simply because feeling in the ordinary sense was for a moment, or for an hour it may be, dead. The mental faculties were clear enough—so clear, indeed, that they took impressions, photographic in sharpness and detail, of every immediate surrounding, yet with no power of communicating those impressions in any sentient form. They knew, but did not feel. There are people who will tell you gravely that the Victoria Cross is an evil because it inspires men to do reckless things out of sheer desire for the glory of that decoration. It is all nonsense. I have known a great many Victoria Cross heroes, but not one who gained that high distinction because he tried to or was conscious at the moment of deserving it. There are soldiers of some countries in the world to whom glory and the lust of fame are incentives to valorous deeds. They love to think that the eyes of the world, and especially of its fairer half, are on them as they march to battle, and for the sake of these things they will volunteer to lead forlorn hopes; but once in the fight they behave as Nature or Fate decrees. The mere outward trappings of gallantry avail nothing then.

Walker & Cockerell sc.
MAP OF
HOUTNEK
[Large Version]

Of the curious duality that can only be described as detachment of mind from body, memory recalls two conspicuous examples which occurred within my knowledge, if not both within my actual range of vision, on the battlefield of Elandslaagte. One was when the Imperial Light Horse were rushing up the last slope to that wonderful rallying cry of theirs in an onslaught that rolled like a resistless wave across the shot-torn crest and crowned the day with victory. One trooper dropped out of the ranks as if a bullet had struck him, yet he knew that only his legs had given way, suddenly refusing to carry him any further. Speaking frankly of this incident afterwards, he said that at the moment no thought in his mind was so strong as the desire to be with those who were charging up the stony heights, waved on by their intrepid Colonel, Chisholm. He had no sensation that could be akin to fear, and yet he was powerless to move a limb. Then suddenly a strange thing happened. A Mauser bullet ploughed along his cheek and stung him. In another moment mind and body were leaping together up that hill, each striving to be first in the race, and behaving with a gallantry at which even brave men wondered. But for that accidental shot the trooper might have stopped where he fell and been branded as a coward. The other illustration occurred almost simultaneously, but in a different way. Some wounded men of the same dauntless corps were lying on an opposite slope exposed to a heavy fire from some Boers who had crept back to a rocky ledge from which they were raking the whole of that ground with a shower of nickel. John Stuart, of the ‘Morning Post,’ and I went to help two or three who were too badly hit to move, and succeeded in getting them from the bare veldt to comparative safety behind small boulders. One of them told me afterwards that his mind was full of nothing but profound gratitude and admiration when he saw us tucking a comrade into one little sheltered nook, and yet the words that his tongue all the while hurled at us for our folly in not taking cover were quite unfit for publication. No man can pass through experiences of that kind and be in all things the same again. The ‘baptism of fire’ has changed him, though he may never admit it to himself or betray it to his friends.