You will scarcely believe this perhaps. I have just come from
having tea with the Argyle and Sutherland. Of the eight or ten officers
there, not one had heard of the trench. Here, by the river, I have
talked to a score of Highlanders, and not one had heard of it either.
They "didn't know what the hell was up" when the volley came. We could
scarcely have provided all the elements of a panic more carefully.
Nothing of note followed during the day. Airlie fended off a Boer
flanking move on our right, and the Coldstreams backed up the
Highlanders a bit, but practically only the Highland Brigade was in it.
It was a disaster to that Brigade only, and consequently the rest of the
army does not feel itself defeated, and is not in any way discouraged.
Some people suggest now that we in our turn may be attacked, and that
the enemy may try and retake the river position from which we shifted
him a fortnight ago. It is reported that they have got up heavy
reinforcements from Natal, and some long-range guns that will reach our
camp from the hill. All kinds of rumours are afloat, mostly to the
effect that the Boers are circling round behind us, _via_ Douglas on the
west and Jacobsdal on the east, and mean cutting our communications.
However, as I have long since found out, a camp is a hot-bed of lies.
Nothing positive is known, for every one is kept in careful ignorance of
everything that is going on.
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