ry way
straight and honourable.]

LETTER XIX

THE MARCH SOUTH

BETHLEHEM, _July 14_, 1900.

Whenever in this campaign we have dealt the enemy what looked like a
crushing blow, he has always hit back instantly at us. When Methuen
reached the limit of his advance at the Modder River victory, the Boers
were round immediately threatening us from behind. When we took
Bloemfontein they at once swarmed round to the east and south, and dealt
us two nasty blows at Sanna's Post and Reddersberg; and no sooner had we
taken Pretoria than the same activity was displayed again.

They threatened us now from two points. Louis Botha had collected a
large force, and was watching us from the hills east of the town, while
the everlasting De Wet, far south, was breaking up the railway and
burning our letters. The first thing we did, and we did it the very day
after entering the capital, was to march against Botha. Ian Hamilton has
paid our little corps the compliment of taking it on as his bodyguard.
He is a general that inspires every one under him with great confidence.
It is curious, by the way, how very soon troops get to know the worth of
a leader; just as a pack of hounds knows by instinct when it is properly
handled. Outsiders may argue about this or that general, and analyse
his tactics, and never very likely get much nearer the truth (for there
is a monstrous lot of luck one way or the other in all manoeuvres, and
the ones often succeed that didn't ought to, and _vice versa_); but once
you are under a man, you don't need to argue; you know. We all know that
Ian Hamilton, with his pleasant well-bred manner, and the mutilated hand
dangling as he rides, is the best man we have had over us yet, and we
would all do great things to show our devotion.

The Diamond Hill action was one of those great big affairs which it
would be impossible to explain without a plan of the country and a lot
of little flags. Our attack from extreme left to right was spread over a
frontage of, I daresay, twenty miles. The idea was for the mounted
troops to turn the enemy's flanks and let in the infantry in front. Ian
Hamilton had to deal with the Boer left flank, French with the right. Of
course we saw and heard nothing of French, who might as well have been
fighting in another planet, so far as we knew. Our difficulty here, as
on some former occasions, was to find the limit of their flanks. The
more we stretch out, the more they stretch out. Th