, and we were looking at it through glasses when a note
came in from the right flank reporting a body of the enemy advancing on
us from the east. Presently we made out on the edge of the dust a line
of horsemen opening out on a kind of glade on the hillside, and the
Brigadier ordered the guns to come into position where we were standing.
It was really no sort of position at all, being merely a wood with no
view from it, and in a hollow at that; but it was all that could be
done.

The guns came galloping up, the horses as keen as mustard; in five
minutes they had unlimbered and were in position; but Major Jackson, who
was in command of the battery, reported that the range was extreme and
that he could not be effective. So we lit pipes and waited, while the
convoy was ordered to be hurried up as much as possible.

Up galloped an orderly with a note, and everyone tried to read the
Brigadier's face. It clouded a little.

"Enemy advancing in strength on our front" was the essence of the note.
But "They've got us in the nastiest place of the whole march" was all he
said.

In a few minutes more Prince Alexander of Teck came up to report that
the convoy was well up, and just as he had finished speaking rifle-fire
broke out on our right, and a minute later, sharply, on our front. It
was then 4.45, and a bewildering moment for the Brigadier, who had a
great, bulky convoy to protect, and had it at the moment in a
defenceless position. I think I would not take any reward to bear the
responsibility of acting at such a moment. The shots were sounding
quicker, but one could see nothing except the surrounding trees. Colonel
Mahon looked coolly round.

"We must try with the guns," he said, and ordered another squadron out
on the right.

The orderly rode away with the order, and at exactly five o'clock the
fire broke out furiously and bullets began to whistle over us. Everyone
put his horse into a canter by instinct, and I think the staff went
round to the guns. I returned to the convoy to look after my cart.

The convoy was moving on now on as broad a front as the shrubs and trees
would permit of; it raised a cloud of dust, which the level rays of the
sun lit like a rainbow, and the bullets began to come in a hail. Well,
that is rather exaggerated--not a hail. But on a summer day after
oppressive heat and dark clouds the big raindrops begin to splash on the
ground; and this fire, which many old stagers who have been through
sev