oers
might conceivably get between him and his base. The same advantage we
should possess on this western side of the theatre of war, except that
we are so heavily outnumbered, and have adopted no heroic plan of
abandoning the indefensible. We have an irregular force of mounted
infantry at Mafeking, the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment at Kimberley,
the Munster Fusiliers at De Aar, half the Yorkshire Light Infantry at De
Aar, half the Berkshire Regiment at Naauwpoort--do not try to pronounce
it--and the other half here at Stormberg. The Northumberlands--the
famous Fighting Fifth--came crawling up behind our train, and may now be
at Naauwpoort or De Aar. Total: say, 4100 infantry, of whom some 600
mounted; no cavalry, no field-guns. The Boer force available against
these isolated positions might be very reasonably put at 12,000 mounted
infantry, with perhaps a score of guns.

Mafeking and Kimberley are fairly well garrisoned, with auxiliary
volunteers, and may hold their own: at any rate, I have not been there
and can say nothing about them. But along the southern border of the
Free State--the three railway junctions of De Aar, Naauwpoort, and
Stormberg--our position is very dangerous indeed. I say it freely, for
by the time the admission reaches England it may be needed to explain
failure, or pleasant to add lustre to success. If the Army Corps were in
Africa, which is still in England, this position would be a splendid one
for it--three lines of supply from Capetown, Port Elizabeth, and East
London, and three converging lines of advance by Norval's Pont,
Bethulie, and Aliwal North. But with tiny forces of half a battalion in
front and no support behind--nothing but long lines of railway with
ungarrisoned ports hundreds of miles at the far end of them--it is very
dangerous. There are at this moment no supports nearer than England. Let
the Free Staters bring down two thousand good shots and resolute men
to-morrow morning--it is only fifty miles, with two lines of
railway--and what will happen to that little patch of white tents by the
station? The loss of any one means the loss of land connection between
Western and Eastern Provinces, a line open into the heart of the Cape
Colony, and nothing to resist an invader short of the sea.

It is dangerous--and yet nobody cares. There is nothing to do but
wait--for the Army Corps that has not yet left England. Even to-day--a
day's ride from the frontier--the war seems hardly real