men. Graves they proved to be in
many cases, for where the Boers were shot in them the trenches were
simply filled in and the bodies thus rudely buried. But how independent
they were! No bulky commissariat department, no army of cooks and
butchers--every man with his own kettle and biltong or canned beef, his
own rug or sleeping bag, his own water-bottle; so that when he came into
such a position as this he could remain in it for days together. One saw
many pathetic things in these trenches--garments and personal belongings
evidently made by hands that did not work for hire.

In two trenches I found Dutch Bibles; in one a diary of the last few
weeks; in almost all some sign that human beings and not machines had
been at work there; and on all sides spent shells and shrapnel cases and
cartridges, to remind one of the nature of their work. When one
followed, as I had followed so far, in the shadow of the war and not in
the midst of it, in the track of the Red Cross and the wayside cemetery
instead of within sound and sight of the thing itself, one saw a very
dark and unrelieved side of it--the shadow without the substance, the
effect without the cause.

PART III

LORD ROBERTS'S ADVANCE TO BLOEMFONTEIN

IX

THE BOER PANIC AT OSFONTEIN

The carefully prepared attack of Lord Roberts on the Boer position at
Osfontein was delivered on Wednesday, March 7th, with the result that
the enemy fled without attempting to defend his extremely strong
position. To understand the gravity of the attack you must have been
there during the last few days of preparation, when hills and ridges,
subsequently abandoned in a moment, were being strengthened and armed
with trenches and guns. On Sunday and Monday, the 4th and 5th of March,
I rode round the whole position, and, like everyone else, was led to
expect a very severe struggle. The position was roughly this. The great
plain through which the river winds is broken five miles east of
Osfontein by a long range of kopjes extending about fourteen miles north
and south. All these kopjes were until the day of our attack occupied by
a force of 7,000 Boers, but to the west of them were a few lower hills
and ridges which we held. We did not know exactly how far to the east
the Boer kopjes extended; that is to say, we did not know how broad
might be the line of their defences; all we knew was that there were
other kopjes to the eastward, and that the enemy probably held them. Our