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Updated: June 13, 2025
As though by instinct, that night saw a gathering of the patrols at troop head-quarters. Telegraph instruments, and dry batteries, and coils of wire, were laid together for the morrow's hike. The trek wagon was hauled from the old barn in back of Mr. Wall's house. The tents were carried from the same place and laid in the wagon.
Besides, the men were tired after their long trek, and it would be quite as much as they could do comfortably to arrange nice and shipshape all the stores and tools, which had been dumped down anyhow in a heap, pitch the camp, and get their teas before dark.
Early next morning we started for Deir el Belah, which was to be our jumping-off place for the attack on Gaza, whither the Turks had now retreated. It was a beautiful trek. If there were not "roses, roses, all the way," the green fields and the almond blossom made very acceptable substitutes.
At five we outspanned, with orders to trek again at the uncomfortable hour of 1 A.M. The Orderly-corporal left me and a Sergeant Smith of the Munsters to sleep on the floor of the waggon, and the rest slept in a tent. They gave us tea, and later beef-tea. The sergeant and I sat up till late, yarning. He is a married reservist with two children, and is more than sick of the war.
To stamp these misstatements as false, it needs only to be considered that from the time of the Boer trek in 1835-38 every Boer had been a hunter and guerilla soldier possessed of the best firearms then extant, ready at any sacrifice to provide still more effective weapons as inventions in arms of precision in turn progressed. His passion to be well armed only equalled that of his love for land.
He had parked the Ford with its trailer attachment at the west end of the platform. If his partner's impedimentia was not too bulky, the ancient model was ready for another trek to the hills. Back and forth along the long brick platform he strode in the bright autumn sun. It was no sloven's gait.
But most of all I thought of warm scented noons on trek, when one dozed in the shadow of the wagon and sniffed the wood-smoke from the fire where the boys were cooking dinner. From these pleasant pictures I returned to the beastly present the thick snowy woods, the lowering sky, wet clothes, a hunted present, and a dismal future.
In the course of the next day's trek we passed close to the scene of the combat, and, for the satisfaction of my curiosity, I made a point of carefully examining the tree into which the body of the vanquished had been thrown.
"Ask her if she remembers the Free State Hotel on the veld, three days' trek from Dreipoort, and Bough, who was her friend?" the voice would say.. "You are Bough?" she would find herself asking. There would be a little guttural, horrible laugh, and nothing would answer but the buzzing of the wire. And then she was wide awake and sitting up in bed, with a thumping heart.
They remained unseen until the night of the 30th, when the long trek northwards began. If you can imagine a mighty column of dust well over ten miles in length, in the midst of which were many thousands of half-suffocated men and horses, you have no need of further words to picture that night's march, which lasted for ten hours. At dawn all the troops were in their assigned positions.
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