A stone's throw from the river is a mud wall, with a mud house at one
side scarcely rising above it, yet house and wall giving in the early
morning a patch of black shadow in the midst of the glare. Here the old
priest used to celebrate his mass. A hundred or two of Tommies and a few
officers would congregate here soon after sunrise, and stand bare-headed
till the beams looked over the wall, when helmet after helmet would go
on; or kneel together in the dust while the priest lifted the host.
Every man had his arms, the short bayonet bobbing on the hip; every
brown and grimy hand grasped a rifle; and as the figures sink low at the
ringing of the bell, a bristle of barrels stands above the bowed heads.
Distant horse hoofs drum the plain as an orderly gallops from one part
of the camp to another. Right facing us stands Magersfontein, its ugly
nose with the big gun at the end of it thrust out towards us. How many
of this little brotherhood under the mud wall, idly I wonder, will ever
see English meadows again?
The Boers still face us at Magersfontein. Their left is south of the
Modder. They have a strong laager at Jacobsdal on the Reit, and have
pushed west and south of that, where, from the kopjes about Zoutspan and
Ramdam, they threaten our lines of communication. The Reit river,
flowing almost south and north for some distance parallel to the
railway, though a good way east of it, is a strengthening feature for
them in that part of the field, and taking advantage of it, they have
brought their left well round.
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