quite against their usual tactics, charged us so soon as they
noticed us. Muller had to fall back again and again. The enemy under
General Paget, pursued us as if we were a lot of game, and it soon
became apparent that they had made up their mind to catch us this
time. I sent our carts into the forest along Poortjesnek to
Roodelaager, and made a stand in the kopjes near Rhenosterkop.

On the 28th--the next day--General Paget pitched his camp near our
positions, shelling us with some batteries of field guns till dusk.
The same evening I received information that a force under General
Lyttelton had marched from Middelburg and arrived near Blackwood Camp.
This meant that our way near Gourjsberg had been cut off. All we could
do was to keep the road along Poortjesnek well defended, for if the
enemy were to succeed in blocking that as well, we would be in a trap
and be entirely cut up.

There was General Paget against us to the west, to the south there was
Rhenosterkop with no way out, and General Lyttelton to the east, while
to the north there was only one road, running between high chains and
deep clefts. If General Paget were to make a flanking movement
threatening the road to the north, I should have been obliged to
retire in hot haste, but we were in hopes the General would not think
of this. General Lyttelton only needed to advance another mile, right
up to the first "randts" of the mountain near Blackwood Camp, for his
guns to command our whole position, and to make it impossible for us
to hold it. I had, however, a field-cornet's company between him and
my burghers, with instructions to resist as long as possible, and to
prevent our being attacked from behind, which plan succeeded, as luck
would have it. My Krupp and pom-pom guns had been repaired, or rather,
patched up, though the former had only been fired fourteen times when
it was done up.

I placed the Johannesburgers on the left, the Police in the centre,
and the Boksburgers on the right. As I have already pointed out, these
positions were situated in a row of small kopjes strewn with big
"klips," while the assailant would have to charge over a bare "bult,"
and we should not be able to see each other before they were at 60 to
150 paces distant.

Next morning, when the day dawned, the watchmen gave the alarm, the
warning we knew so well, "The Khakis are coming!" The horses were all
put out of range of the bullets behind the "randts." I rode about
with my of