d the Colonel. "Come along."

So we cantered on up to the foot of the hill, up the slope, over the
hill, and not a shot was fired at us. The excitement was tremendous; we
were riding slap into what looked like a hornets' nest. There were
kopjes flanking us now on both sides; I wished that I hadn't come. I
expected every moment to hear the rattle of Mausers. Someone's horse
kicked a tin can, and we ducked our heads like one man. But we rode up
to and into and through and over the central position of the enemy that
he had been strengthening for days; and he never fired a shot to prevent
us. It was glorious luck, thus to be in the very front of an advancing
force, to be on the very horns of the advance, and to be absolutely out
of danger, for what little opposition there was was encountered later by
the main body.

When I thought that I had advanced far enough into what ought to have
been the jaws of death, I drew on one side and let the brigade go past,
and then I saw what little firing there was. Behind the mounted infantry
came the field-guns, galloping alone over the smooth ground; and
presently we heard the report of a gun from the other side of the next
eastward ridge over which the enemy had retired. It is very
uncomfortable waiting for a shell to arrive. One has only the sound to
guide one as to where it has come from, and one has no notion at all as
to where it is going to strike. This one burst right amongst the
galloping artillery, which at once opened out on both sides of a smoking
patch. Not a man or horse was down. And here the Boers lost their big
chance of the day. All the brigade had to advance through this one
narrow pass between the kopjes; the Boers had got the range of it
absolutely; if they had fired a dozen shells in quick succession they
would have done a dismal amount of mischief. But they only fired two
other shells, and, marvellously, no one was hit. The reason I believe to
have been that the dust of their own retreat, which hung like a haze
over the ridge, hid our advancing troops from the Boers, and they did
not know whether or not anyone was under their fire.

In the meantime the Ninth Brigade had been doing just the same kind of
thing on the north river bank; and when the attack (such as it was--a
gentle shelling) was being pressed there, General French came up from
the south-east and drove the enemy northward across the river. If French
had been a little earlier we should have cut off the