ain still lying on the embankment, the graves beside it, and the donga
into which Winston Churchill pulled and carried the wounded.

And as the train bumped and halted before the blue and white enamel sign
that marks Colenso station, the places which have made that spot familiar
and momentous fell into line like the buoys which mark the entrance to a
harbor.

We knew that the high bare ridge to the right must be Fort Wylie, that
the plain on the left was where Colonel Long had lost his artillery, and
three officers gained the Victoria Cross, and that the swift, muddy
stream, in which the iron railroad bridge lay humped and sprawling, was
the Tugela River.

Six hours before, at Frere Station, the station-master had awakened us to
say that Ladysmith would be relieved at any moment. This had but just
come over the wire. It was "official." Indeed, he added, with local
pride, that the village band was still awake and in readiness to
celebrate the imminent event. He found, I fear, an unsympathetic
audience. The train was carrying philanthropic gentlemen in charge of
stores of champagne and marmalade for the besieged city. They did not
want it to be relieved until they were there to substitute _pate de foie
gras_ for horseflesh. And there were officers, too, who wanted a "look
in," and who had been kept waiting at Cape Town for commissions,
gladdening the guests of the Mount Nelson Hotel the while with their new
khaki and gaiters, and there were Tommies who wanted "Relief of
Ladysmith" on the claps of their medals, as they had seen "Relief of
Lucknow" on the medals of the Chelsea pensioners. And there was a
correspondent who had journeyed 15,000 miles to see Ladysmith relieved,
and who was apparently going to miss that sight, after five weeks of
travel, by a margin of five hours.

We all growled "That's good," as we had done for the last two weeks every
time we had heard it was relieved, but our tone was not enthusiastic.
And when the captain of the Natal Carbineers said, "I am afraid the good
news is too premature," we all said, hopefully, we were afraid it was.

We had seen nothing yet that was like real war. That night at
Pietermaritzburg the officers at the hotel were in mess-jackets, the
officers' wives in dinner-gowns. It was like Shepheard's Hotel, at the
top of the season. But only six hours after that dinner, as we looked
out of the car-windows, we saw galloping across the high grass, like men
who had