ll within the line of fire. More than
frequently a shrill vicious "whigge" as the Lee-Metford bullets clip the
air, or shatter to a flattened lead mushroom against a stone, causes an
involuntary duck. The American is taking plentiful notes in shorthand.
Colvin, who is without this resource, also devoid of the natural
excitement of the combatant of firing at the enemy as well as being
fired at by him, takes longer to get used to the hum of bullets and the
bursting of shrapnel than would otherwise have been the case, for he is
totally unarmed, a precaution taken against the eventuality of capture
by his own countrymen. And the effect of this precaution is strange.
He feels out of it. Needless to say he has no desire to draw trigger on
his said countrymen, yet the consciousness that he is being shot at--no
matter whom by--without the power of replying, is strange and novel.
But his nerves at last become attuned to the hum of missiles, and he
watches the whole arena of the battle with a vivid and increasing
interest.

Higher and higher mounts the sun, more blistering and scorching his
rays, giving forth from the ironstone of the kopje as though reflected
from an oven. A strange mirage, watery, crystallised, hangs over the
brown expanse of veldt, going off into limpid blue on the far horizon,
where the distant flat-topped hills seem to be suspended in mid-air.
Whether it is that this lake-like liquid tranquillity emphasises the
torrid heat or not, those on the kopje feel what the burning of thirst
means. They have water-bottles from which they refresh, but sparingly.
Those in the trenches feel it too, but their attention is on the dire,
stern business of the day. No time have they to dwell upon mere
corporeal cravings.

Whigge! Crash! Shell after shell is breaking within their lines. Men
writhe, shattered, screaming, where the hideous dismemberment of the
human frame is beyond all human endurance, however willing the spirit,
the dogged, stern, manly, patriotic spirit--proof against mere ordinary
pain--agony even. One of the group round Andries Botma sinks to the
earth as a Nordenfelt missile, crashing and splintering among the stones
which form his cover, buries a great fragment of jagged iron deep in his
thigh. All run to him, foremost among them the Commandant, reckless of
the perfect hailstorm of bullets which already, although at long-range,
is beginning to spray the kopje, while some signal wildly to the
a