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There was no cheer, but a savage sound as if every man had suddenly uttered the word "Ha!" in token of his satisfaction; for, as the two bodies of the enemy in front were racing over the veldt to meet and crush us as we tried to get through, our trumpeter sounded a blast which sent us along at full speed; and then another call was blown, and we swept round till, going at right angles to our former course, we were riding exactly in the opposite direction to the detachment of Boers on the right.
And now at the end of their great journey, after overcoming the difficulties of distance, of nature, and of savage enemies, the Boers saw at the end of their travels the very thing which they desired least that which they had come so far to avoid the flag of Great Britain.
That would be poetic justice, and justice is so rare in the world. But the question was, would he do it? The little man was a wonderful coward, that she knew, and had a great terror of Boers, and especially of Frank Muller. "Jantje," she whispered, stooping towards the bee-hole.
It had not been trained in the mass tactics which hurl columns of flesh forward to gain tactical points that have been mauled by artillery fire. You do not use mass tactics against Boers, nor against Afridis, nor Filipinos. It is difficult to combine the two kinds of efficiency.
Indeed, as there was more land than we could possibly occupy, I persuaded Henri Marais, the Prinsloos and the Meyers, with whom I had trekked from Delagoa, to visit it with me. When they had seen it they agreed to make it their home in the future, but meanwhile elected to return to the other Boers for safety's sake.
That temporary occupation of Natal had been fraught to the Boers with most stirring episodes some of the most melancholy description, and others representing records of really unsurpassed heroism, which can but arouse deepest emotions and admiration in any reader of their history.
The Boers on their side had taken advantage of the interior position they held, between the relieving column and the garrison, and of the fact that the latter could scarcely attempt to break out to the north, to withdraw their forces in great measure from the latter quarter, disposing them between Ladysmith and the Tugela in such wise that they might most easily be concentrated upon the centre, should the British attack be made there, as it first was, or upon either flank should a turning manoeuvre be attempted.
Alas! the Boers, always impatient of authority and confident that their own individual judgment was the best, did not obey their commandant's order to keep together. They went off this way and that, to shoot the game which was then so plentiful, leaving their families almost without protection. Thus the Zulus found and slew them.
In this report he gives details of some curious movements among the enemy. One contingent, apparently some foreign legion, showing traces of elementary discipline and evidently not numbering in its ranks many Boers of the old school, advanced boldly across ground that afforded them little cover, and there began to "front form" in fairly good order.
It proves how lightly a highly-disciplined cavalry can come off where one would have said hardly any could survive. As we retired the Boers kept following us up, though with great caution.
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