I was not the only one who made a hasty exit
from the camp; in ten seconds the side of the kopje was alive with men. The
shells continued to fall right amongst the waggons every few minutes for
over two hours; yet only one man was killed, a negro driver being the
victim, a shell dropping right against his thigh. The range of the Boer gun
was absolutely perfect, but the shells were mere rubbish. Had they been as
good as ours, half our transport would have been in ruins. The British
gunners manoeuvred in all directions in order to locate that particularly
dangerous piece of ordnance. They blazed at it in batteries; they tried to
find it by means of cross-firing; they lined men up on the sky-line of
kopjes to draw the fire; they limbered up and galloped far out on the
veldt, until the enemy's rifle fire drove them in again; but all in vain.
The Boer leader had placed his gun with such skill that the British could
not locate it, and it kept up its devilish jubilee until the night set in.

That day our scouts captured one Free State flag from the enemy; the
Yeomanry and mounted infantry did not succeed in their efforts to turn the
Boers' left flank, but they checked the enemy from advancing in that
direction, which was an important item in the day's work. We did not want
the Boer left to overlap our right; had they done so they could then get
behind us and harass our convoys coming from the direction of Bethany
railway station. We had very little dread of them turning our left flank,
because we knew that General French was moving towards us on that side from
Bloemfontein, with the object of getting the Boers on the inside of two
forces, and so giving them no chance of escape. We had only a few men
wounded, one petty officer of the Scouts killed, and a negro driver killed,
which was simply marvellous when one considers the terrible amount of
ammunition used during the day. That night all the correspondents had to
sleep, or try to sleep, with the transport. It was a wretched night; we
knew the Boers had the range, and we fully expected to get a hot shelling
between darkness and dawn, but, curiously enough, the foe kept their guns
still all the night But the suspense made the night a weary one.

The following day was Sunday, and at a very early hour our scouts informed
us that the Boers had made a wide detour towards Wepener, and had
overlapped our right flank. They slipped up into a kopje, which would have
enabled them to enfi