During this day the veldt to the north and south was deserted by the enemy except at out-of-range distance, but a continuous sniping fire was kept up along the river-banks on each side. The Boer guns were shifted—one to the top of Incidentamba and one to the east and west in order to enfilade the river bank—but, owing to our good cover, we escaped with two killed and three wounded. The enemy did not shell quite such a length of river this time. I confidently expected an attack along the river bank that night, and slightly strengthened my flanks, even at the risk of dangerously denuding the north bank. I was not disappointed.

Under cover of the dark, the enemy came up to within, perhaps, 600 yards on the open veldt on the north and round the edges of Waschout Hill, on the south, and kept up a furious fire, probably to distract our attention, whilst the guns shelled us for about an hour. As soon as the gun-fire ceased they tried to rush us along the river-bed east and west, but owing to the abatis and the holes in the ground, and the fact that it was not a very dark night, they were unsuccessful. However, it was touch and go, and a few of the Boers did succeed in getting into our position only to be bayoneted. Luckily the enemy did not know our strength, or rather our weakness, or they would have persisted in their attempt and succeeded; as it was, they must have lost 20 or 30 men killed and wounded.

Next morning, with so many men out of my original 40 out of action (not to include Waschout Hill, whose losses I did not know), matters seemed to be serious, and I was greatly afraid that another night would be the end of us. I was pleased to see that the detachment on Waschout Hill had still got its tail well up, for they had hoisted a red rag at the masthead. True, this was not the national flag, probably only a mere handkerchief, but it was not white. The day wore on with intermittent shelling and sniping, and we all felt that the enemy must have by now guessed our weakness, and were saving themselves for another night attack, relying upon our being tired out. We did our best to snatch a little sleep by turns during the day, and I did all I could to keep the spirits of the little force up by saying that relief could not be very far off. But it was with a gloomy desperation at best that we saw the day wear on and morning turn into afternoon.

The Boer guns had not been firing for some two hours, and the silence was just beginning to get irritating and mysterious, when the booming of guns in the distance aroused us to the highest pitch of excitement. We were saved! We could not say what guns these were—they might be British or Boer—but, any way, it proved the neighborhood of another force. All faces lighted up, for somehow the welcome sound at once drew the tired feeling out of us.

In order to prevent any chance of the fresh force missing our whereabouts, I collected a few men and at once started to fire some good old British volleys into the scrub, "Ready—present—fire," which were not to be mistaken. Shortly afterwards we heard musketry in the distance, and saw a cloud of dust to the northeast. We were relieved!

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Our total losses were 11 killed and 15 wounded; but we had held the drift, and so enabled a victory to be won. I need not here touch upon the well-known and far-reaching results of the holding of Duffer's Drift, of the prevention thereby of Boer guns, ammunition, and reinforcements reaching one of their sorely pressed forces at a critical moment, and the ensuing victory gained by our side. It is now, of course, all public knowledge that this was the turning-point in the war, though we, the humble instruments, did not know what vital results hung upon our action.

That evening the relieving force halted at the drift, and, after burying the dead, we spent some time examining the lairs of the Boer snipers, the men collecting bits of shell and cartridge-cases as mementoes—only to be thrown away at once. We found some 25 dead and partially buried Boers, to whom we gave burial.

That night I did not trek, but lay down (in my own breeches and spotted waistcoat). As the smoke from the "prime segar," presented to me by my Colonel, was eddying in spirals over my head, these gradually changed into clouds of rosy glory, and I heard brass bands in the distance playing a familiar air: "See the Conquering Hero comes," it was they were playing.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and heard a gentle voice say, "Arise, Sir Backsight Forethought;" but in a trice my dream of bliss was shattered—the gentle voice changed into the well-known croak of my servant. "Time to pack your kit on the wagon, sir. Corfy's been up some time now, sir." I was still in stinking old Dreamdorp.



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- Typographical errors corrected in text: Page 166: maneuvers replaced with manoeuvres -

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