l fought well, while those under a bad or incapable
General were very weak indeed. Sometimes wonders were done at the
initiative of some of the burghers. We had a few games in the camp to
pass the time, but we were kept busy in a different way also. Sometimes,
when we were all just comfortably lazy, the order would be given to
'mount.' That meant a hurried search for our horses and snatching up our
guns and bandoliers. But after a while we had had enough of those false
alarms, and they failed to make any impression on us. The call of 'The
English are coming! saddle, saddle!' became proverbial.

When we did not keep such constant guard, we sat or lay listening of an
evening to a most discordant noise caused by the singing of psalms and
hymns at the same time at different farms. We sometimes joined in. As a
people we are not very musical.

The day-watch we liked best. Then we often got a chance of firing a shot
at a careless khaki on the Rooirandjes. To some of our young men there
was something very exciting in the idea that they were in constant
danger. Every now and again a bomb, too, would come flying over the
camp, and the whole commando would make for the rocks amid shouts of
laughter.

At that time we still felt rather down when there was a fight in
prospect. When, some time after our attack on the Rooirandjes, we went
to the west of Ladysmith to attack Platrand, we did not feel at all
comfortable, although we went voluntarily. It was a lovely ride in the
dark at a flying gallop, but when we found on our arrival at Platrand
that the promised number of men was not there, we rode away again quite
satisfied that we had not to attempt the attack. For had we not made up
our minds not to risk a repetition of the attack on Rooirandjes?

The blowing-up of the cannon at Ladysmith is one of the episodes of the
war that we look back upon with a feeling of shame. A few days after a
Long Tom had been blown up on Umbulwana Kop, east of Ladysmith, I warned
our Field-Cornet that the enemy were busy spying in our neighbourhood at
night. While on guard, we could distinctly hear the flapping of the
saddles and the neighing of the horses in front of us. I foretold a
repetition of what had happened on Umbulwana Kop. The Field-Cornet
promised that the guard would be doubled that night. Towards morning
those of us who were not on guard were waked out of our sleep by a loud
cry of 'Hurrah!' from the throats of a few hundred Englishmen w