the
Royal, where officers, correspondents, and a nurse or two congregate for
meals in hope of staying their intolerable thirst--bang came a shell
from "Long Tom" straight for the dining-room window. Happily a little
house which served as bedroom to Mr. Pearse, of the _Daily News_, just
caught it on its way. Crash it came through the iron roof, the wooden
ceiling, into the brick wall. There it burst, and the house was in the
past. Happily Mr. Pearse was only on his way to his room, and had not
reached it. Some of the lunchers got bricks in their backs, and one man
took to his bed of a shocked stomach.

At the time I was away on the Maritzburg road, which starts west from
the town and gradually curves southward. The picket on the ridge called
Range Post is a relic of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, now in the
show-ground at Pretoria. Major Kincaid was there, only returned the
night before from the Boer camp behind "Long Tom." He had been ill with
fever and was exchanged. He spoke with praise of the Boer treatment of
our wounded and prisoners. When our fellows were worn out, the Boers
dismounted and let them ride. They brought them water and any food they
had. Joubert came round the ambulance, commanding there should be no
distinction between the wounded of either race. Major Kincaid had seen a
good deal of the so-called Colonel Blake and his so-called Irish
Brigade. He found that the very few who were not Americans were English.
He had not a single real Irishman among them. Blake, an American, had
come out for the adventure, just as he went to the Chili War.

As we were talking, up galloped General Brocklehurst, Ian Hamilton, and
the Staff, and I was called upon to give information about certain
points in the country to our front--names and directions, the bits of
plain where cavalry could act, and so on. The Intelligence Department
had heard a large body of Free State Boers was moving westward from the
south, as though retiring towards the passes. The information was false.
The only true point about it was the presence of a large Boer force
along a characteristic Boer position of low rocky hills about three
miles to our front. There the General thought he would shell them out
with a battery, and catch them as they retired by swinging cavalry
round into the open length of plain behind the hills. So at 11 a.m. out
trotted the 19th Hussars with the remains of the 18th. Then came a
battery, with the 5th Dragoon Guards as escort