now busy refitting
wagons and gear for a further advance. I hope the services of the
bluejackets in these operations, which have been invaluable, will
receive the recognition they deserve at the end of the campaign.

CHAPTER VII

Majuba Hill in 1900 -- We march on Wakkerstroom and occupy
Sandspruit -- Withdrawal of H.M.S. _Forte's_ men and Naval
Volunteers from the front -- Action under General Brocklehurst at
Sandspruit -- I go to hospital and Durban for a short time --
Recover and proceed to the front again -- Take command of my guns
at Grass Kop -- Kruger flies from Africa in a Dutch man-of-war --
Many rumours of peace.

_Saturday, 16th June._--Starting about 10 a.m. I rode over to Laing's
Nek with Captain Jones and Lieutenants Hunt and Steel, taking
Charlestown on our way and getting up to the railway tunnel where
Clery's Division is encamped. The Boer scoundrels have blown down both
ends of the tunnel, blocking up the egress, and putting a dead horse
at each end! We found also a deep boring they had made over the top of
the nek through the slate with the object of reaching the roof of the
tunnel and exploding it; but this having failed, from our friends not
getting deep enough, the damage is insignificant and the rail will be
cleared by the Engineers within a few days. We rode along the top of
Laing's Nek and looked at the trench, some three to four miles long,
which the Boers had made there; it completely defends the nek from
every point of attack and gives the defender, by its zigzag direction,
many points for enfilading any assaulting party. In fact, the work is
marvellous; the Boers must have had 10,000 men employed on it, the
trench being some five feet deep on stone and slate, with clever gun
positions, stretching from Pougwana, to the east of the nek, to
Amajuba on the west, as we saw plainly later on from Majuba and
elsewhere. We rode up Majuba Hill as far as we could, finding it a
great upstanding hill with a flat top overlooking the nek. On the way
we passed many small trenches and sniping pits evidently made for
enfilading fire. From the top of the grassy slope (when it became too
steep for the horses to climb) we commenced the ascent of the actual
hill on foot, climbing, one might say, in the footsteps of the Boers
of 1881 when they made the wonderful attack on Colley and turned his
men off the top. Right well can we now understand how they did it; it
is al