Then arise other questions. Sometimes a part of the garrison is
relieved and receives orders to join the column, while some of the
troops forming the column are left behind in their place. Of course
every one in the town is longing to get away, and every one in the
column is dreading having to stay, and there is an interval of ghastly
expectation while contradictory rumours go hurtling from village to camp
and back again; and men look at each other like cannibals, every one
hoping the doom will fall on some one else. We in our corps are spared
all this anxiety, and can lie on our backs and look on and condole with
the unlucky ones. We never get left anywhere.
For the last few weeks we have been cruising about over the veldt from
one little British fort to another with our huge fleet of waggons,
doling out supplies. During this time we have been fighting more or
less, I think, every day. Perhaps you would hardly call it fighting;
long-range sniping the greater part of it. Out of our 250 mounted men we
have had some half-dozen casualties only, and we have accounted for a
dozen or so of the enemy and a few prisoners. They have the advantage of
their intimate knowledge of the country. We have the advantage of a
pompom and two 15-pounders. These are invaluable in keeping the Boers at
a respectful distance. It is rather satisfactory to plump some shrapnel
on to a group of waiting, watching Boers three miles off, who are just
concocting in their sinful hearts some scheme for getting a shot at you;
or to lay a necklace of exploding pompom shells among some rocks where
you guess they are hiding.
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