Dead silence is the only reply. The sun
rises and glares on the rocky hills. Not a living thing is to be seen."
LETTER VI
MAGERSFONTEIN
MODDER RIVER CAMP,
_December 13_, 1899.
When we were camped a day's march south of this, two Boers brought in a
wounded man of ours in a Cape cart. "You will never get to Kimberley,"
they said to us. "It will take better men than you to stop us," said we.
"Not a bit of it," said they, and off they drove. As it turns out, they
were nearer the mark than we were.
While I write this, early on the morning of the 13th, you at home may
just be reading in the papers the accounts of our last two days'
disastrous fighting. It was a defeat, but yet it was a defeat which was
not felt nor realised by the bulk of the army. It was a blow that fell
entirely on one brigade, and the greater part of our force was still
awaiting the order to advance, and expecting to engage the enemy when
already the attack, unknown to us, had been delivered and repulsed.
Last Sunday, December 10th, about 2 P.M., we moved out of camp northward
towards the point of the big hill, that, like a cape, juts south into
the plain. With all our guns ranged about the point of the hill, we then
proceeded to thrash and batter it with shell-fire. No gun-fire that we
have had as yet has approached this for rapidity. The batteries roared
ceaselessly from the plain; the big 4.
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