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Away on the hill beyond I spied the tiny house and hospital where I had spent six weary nights and days; and between these two buildings a patch of bare ground nearly half a mile square, indescribably filthy, had been the site of the white-hooded waggons and ragged tents of the laager itself.
In the "protected area" P. Viljoen had perforce to be left unmolested until the end of March, when the conclusion of the third drive in the Orange River Colony set some troops free for work elsewhere. His commandos, about 800 strong, were discovered in laager twenty miles east of Springs by a cavalry column under Lawley during a night raid on April 1.
When the work at the laager at the farms, which was impeded by artillery fire from the S.W., was sufficiently advanced, the northern screen was withdrawn. Some confusion ensued, as the Boers in the bush immediately fell upon it, but their attempt to get at the main position on the river, though supported by artillery, failed.
Later he was attached to the Border Mounted Rifles as captain, and did splendid service at the battles of Dordrecht and Labuschagne's Nek In the latter place he was the first man to gallop into the Boer laager before the fight had ceased. Captain, then Lieutenant, Davies was as close to his side as a shadow to a serpent, and they only had fourteen men with them at the time.
Her mission led her to a half-wrecked shanty at the south end of the town, where some Lithuanian emigrants herded together in indescribable filth and misery. A woman who had been recently confined lay there raving in puerperal fever. Until nightfall, when she was removed to the Isolation Hospital on the veld, near the Women's Laager, the Mother-Superior remained with the patient.
What chance had a laager of ten waggons all told against at least two thousand of the bravest savages in the world? "Macumazahn, will you take my advice this time?" Indaba-zimbi said, presently. "What is it?" I asked. "This. Leave your waggons here, jump on that horse, and let us two run for it as hard as we can go. The Zulus won't follow us, they will be looking after the Boers."
The burghers were constantly on the alert when they were on the veld, whether they were merely wandering about, leaving for home, or returning to the laager, and as soon as they secured any information which they believed was valuable they dashed away to the nearest telegraph or heliograph station, and reported it to their general or commandant.
And from their subterranean burrow the Sisters carried on their work of mercy as cheerfully as though their Order had been originally one of Troglodytes, nursing the sick and wounded, cooking and washing for the convalescents, comforting the bereaved, and tending the many orphans of the siege. South lay the laager of the Refugees.
This singular force, so small in numbers and yet raked from the ends of the earth, was under the command of Colonel Pilcher. Moving out suddenly and rapidly from Belmont, it struck at the extreme right of the Boer line, which consisted of a laager occupied by the colonial rebels of that part of the country. Nothing could exceed the enthusiasm of the colonists at the prospect of action.
In the afternoon we had the excitement of seeing the Pretoria coach drive up to the laager with much horn-blowing and whip-cracking. Later some newspapers were brought across, and I was able actually to peruse a Transvaal paper only two days old.
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