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It was a close thing had the enemy been a little smarter they might have had us. As it was, we doubled away under cover of the bush, and were soon out of reach. Now followed a week of rapid trekking, varied with a little shooting now and then at the partridges and bright-plumaged birds that abound in the bushveld, and once relieved by the sight of a magnificent bush fire, a sea of roaring flame.
This column consisted of the Bushveld Carbineers, the 4th Imperial Bushmen's Corps, and the 6th New Zealand contingent. With them were the 18th battery R.F.A., and three pom-poms. A detachment of the invaluable mounted Sappers rode with the force, and two infantry regiments, the 2nd Gordons and the Northamptons, were detached to garrison the more vulnerable places upon the line of advance.
"I'd rather trust to God, Father, because you know you can never hit anything," replied Tabitha. Fortunately, however, it never became necessary for Thomas to show his skill as a marksman, for when they got through the bushveld there were no more lions.
Their father had left for a visit shortly before the war broke out, and had not been able to return. They themselves had done the mission work, unaided, through all these anxious months. And remember that at this time the bushveld Kafirs were waging war amongst themselves! The next day I encountered a couple of waggons laden with ammunition for Delarey.
One man had been reading a book called the Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, and the talk turned on the unexplainable things that happen to everybody once or twice in a lifetime. I contributed a yarn about the men who went to look for Kruger's treasure in the bushveld and got scared by a green wildebeeste. It is a good yarn and I'll write it down some day.
After resting for a fortnight in the northern parts of Zululand, to give time to our wayworn oxen to get some flesh on their bones in the warm bushveld where grass was plentiful even in the dry season, we trekked forward by a route known to Hans and myself. Indeed it was the same which we had followed on our journey from Mazituland after our expedition in search for the Holy Flower.
But that is not strictly true: a large quantity of transport was brought on by the Union Forces; passed through the deepest sand in waterless desert, between gorges, over big kopjes, into almost trackless bushveld and was never more than a day and a half behind. At one place out of a convoy of twenty-seven wagons, seventeen capsized.
In this region an irregular corps, named the Bushveld Carbineers, had been operating. It was raised in South Africa, but contained both Colonials and British in its ranks.
The bushveld is at this season of the year unhealthy both for man and beast, so that for the sake of their herds, their families, and themselves the burghers were constrained to descend into the open veld.
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