puddings
and other delicacies. It was very amusing that we should be
celebrating Christmas with cakes and puddings which had been intended
for our opponents.

A few weeks after we had captured the train carrying the European
mails we made another attempt at train wrecking, this time at
Wonderfontein Station. All, too, went well on this occasion until we
charged, and the British opened fire upon us with cannon. We were not
favoured this time by any sort of cover, but had to attack over open
ground, exposing ourselves to the heavy fire of the guns and the
fusillade of a hundred British riflemen. We had chanced this time upon
an armoured train, and the trucks which bore the cannon had remained
uninjured. The nut was rather too hard for us to crack, and failing to
take the train by storm, we were compelled to retire, after having
sustained the loss of three men, of whom one was my brave adjutant,
Vivian Cogell. From what I have said I think my readers will agree
that the capturing of a train is not always a "cake and ale"
operation.

CHAPTER L.

HOW WE FED AND CLOTHED COMMANDOS.

As early as March, 1901, we experienced the difficulty of adequately
providing our commandos with the necessities of life. So far back as
September, 1900, we had said good-bye at Hector's Spruit to our
commissariat, and thence, no organized supplies existing, it may very
well be imagined that the task of feeding the Boers was one of the
most serious, and I may say disquieting, questions with which we had
to deal. We were cut off from the world, and there was no means of
importing stores. Of course the men who had been previously engaged on
commissariat duty were enlisted in the fighting ranks so soon as they
became available. From this date we had to feed ourselves on quite a
different system. Each commandant looked after his own men and
appointed two or three Boers whose special duty it was to ride round
for provisions. It must not be supposed that we commandeered stores
without signing receipts, and the storekeeper who supplied us was
provided with an acknowledgment, countersigned by field-cornet,
commandant, and general. On producing this document to our Government
the holder received probably one-third of the amount in cash and the
balance in Government notes, better known as "blue-backs." By this
time a large portion of the Republic had been occupied by the British,
all food-stuffs had been removed or destroyed, and most of the