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At dusk the guard on Waschout Hill, for whom a trench had also been dug, was relieved and increased to six men, and after teas and giving out the orders for the next day, we all "turned in" in our trenches. The tents were not pitched, as we were not going to occupy them, and it was no good merely showing up our position.
I was determined to carry out all the lessons I had learnt as well as I knew how. To prevent any strangers, friendly or otherwise, from coming into my position and spying out the elaborate defences I was going to make, I sent out at once two examining posts of one N.C.O. and three men each, one to the top of Waschout Hill, and the other some 1,000 yards out on the veldt to the north of the drift.
After sending out the patrols, and placing a guard on Waschout Hill, as already described, and whilst the stores were being collected, I considered deeply what position I should take up, and walked up to the top of Waschout Hill to spy out the land. On the top I found a Kaffir kraal, which I saw would assist me much to concealment should I decide to hold this hill.
Under cover of the dark, the enemy came up to within, perhaps, 600 yards on the open veldt on the north and round the edges of Waschout Hill, on the south, and kept up a furious fire, probably to distract our attention, whilst the guns shelled us for about an hour.
To my intense horror, I found that from these trenches neither the drift nor the road on the near bank of the river, until it got a long way south of Waschout Hill, could be seen! The bulging convexity of the hill hid all this; it must be dead ground! It was. The very spot where I could best catch the enemy, where they must pass, was not under my fire!
This respite, however, was short, for the men in the right half of the trench began to drop unaccountably whilst they were sitting well under cover, and not exposing themselves at all. I gradually discovered the cause of this. Some snipers must have reached the top of Waschout Hill, and were shooting straight down our right half trench.
For the post on Waschout Hill, the scheme was that the trenches should be concealed much in the same way as described in the last dream, but great care should be taken that no one in the post should be exposed to rifle-fire from our main position in the river. I did not wish the fire of the main body to be in any degree hampered by a fear of hitting the men on Waschout Hill, especially at night.
The guard on Waschout Hill, which had done a certain amount of damage to the enemy, had two men wounded by rifle fire. Not a single shell had come near them, though they were close to the Kaffir huts, which were plain enough. What an anti-climax the reality had been from the pleasurable anticipations of the early morn, when I had first sighted the Boers.
Luckily the enemy did not know our strength, or rather our weakness, or they would have persisted in their attempt and succeeded; as it was, they must have lost 20 or 30 men killed and wounded. I was pleased to see that the detachment on Waschout Hill had still got its tail well up, for they had hoisted a red rag at the masthead.
They were to visit all neighboring farms and kraals and bring in all able-bodied Dutchmen and boys and male Kaffirs by persuasion if possible, but by force if necessary. This would prevent the news of our arrival being carried around to any adjacent commandoes, and would also assist to solve the labor question. A small guard was mounted on the top of Waschout Hill as a look-out.
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