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"Heliograph," said Agar quietly, without taking his eyes from the spot far down in the valley; and soon the little mirror was flashing out its question over the vale. After a few anxious moments the answering gleam sprang to life among the trees far below. Agar gave a quick little sigh of relief that was all. Then followed a short conversation flickered over ten miles of space.
Rain fell, and though the air afterwards was strangely clear, the heliograph could not be used till the afternoon. We were left in uncertainty. Shells were bursting along the ridge of Taba Nyama, on the double peaks and the Boer tents below. Only on the highest point in the centre we could see no firing, and that in itself was hopeful. About 8 a.m. the fire slackened and ceased.
It will be used on radio systems, submarine cables using siphon recorders, and with the heliograph, flash-lantern, and all visual signaling apparatus using the wigwag. For the flag used with the General Service Code there are three motions and one position. The position is with the flag held vertically, the signalman facing directly toward the station with which it is desired to communicate.
There were rumours of fighting by the Tugela, and some said they had seen squadrons of our cavalry and even Staff officers galloping on the further limits of the Great Plain. But beyond the wish, there is no need to believe what they said. In the morning Steevens, of the Daily Mail, was so much worse that we sent off a warning message to Mrs. Steevens by heliograph.
Then the heliograph in the zeriba began to talk in flashes of light that opened and shut capriciously. The actual order is important. 'Advance, said the helio, 'and clear the left flank, and use every effort to prevent the enemy re-entering Omdurman. That was all, but it was sufficient. In the distance the enemy could be seen re-entering Omdurman in hundreds. There was no room for doubt.
This generally takes the form of parades every other hour, when the officers prattle amiably of matters to which you have long been a stranger, and the Sergeant-Major takes the opportunity of preventing his vocabulary from falling into disuse. Also, if you are in the artillery, you clean your harness and polish up the steel-work thereon till it twinkles like a heliograph in the sun.
At a hundred yards they were lost to sight and sound, threading their way with the utmost caution through the long grass like experienced hunters stalking their prey, while the various units kept well in touch with each other by means of reliable runners. Other methods of communication were out of the question. Flag-waving and heliograph would have "given the show away" with the utmost certainty.
It had evidently become known to the enemy that the bridge was broken, and that the Guides were cut off by an impassable river from all support. The matter was immediately reported by heliograph to Sir Robert Low, and orders as promptly sent for the Guides to retire on the bridge-head. It is on an occasion like this that the true fighting value of a regiment shows itself.
Heliograph signals have been twinkling spasmodically, but their language is written in a sealed book. We only know that these "helios" come not from kopjes this side of Tugela, nor from the former signal-station south of Potgieter's and Skiet's Drifts, as they did a few days ago, but from hills near Weenen, as in the months before Buller crossed the Tugela, thus indicating a retrograde movement.
This extraordinary man, living the life of a recluse in his own observatory, which was situated in a lonely part of the country, had, or at any rate, believed that he had, opened up a communication with the inhabitants of Mars, by means of powerful electric lights, flashing in the manner of a signal-lantern or heliograph.
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