"
"Thanks, good-bye," and off I went, determined to see those guns taken.
About four hours' hard riding, then a tent by the wayside, the red cross
floating above. An ambulance waggon has just arrived, bringing a few
wounded. I must be close to the battlefield now, but I hear no firing.
What can have happened?
Half an hour further. I see the fires of a small camp twinkling in a
gully to my left, and make my way thither. It is pitch dark. As I
approach the camp I hear voices. It is Dutch they are speaking. Then
several dim shapes loom up before me in the darkness.
"Hello! What commando is this?"
"Hello, is that you? By Jove, so it is! I thought I knew the voice," and
dashing Chris Botha shakes my hand.
"It is you, commandant! Where are those ten guns?"
"Oh, that's what you're after. Sorry, but we took them early in the
afternoon. Never mind, come along into camp. You'll see enough in the
morning."
In the camp they had six Connaught Rangers--a captain, lieutenant, and
four men, about four of the lot wounded. They alone of all their
regiment had managed to reach the bank of the Tugela--Bridle Drift,
about two hundred yards from the trenches of the Swaziland commando.
Finding no shelter in the river bank, exhausted, wounded almost to a
man, they ceased firing, whereupon our men left them in peace until the
end of the fight, when they were brought over and complimented upon
their pluck.
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