Battles now-a-days are fought mainly with firearms, but no troops, however brave, however well directed, can enjoy the full advantage of their successes if they exclude the possibilities of cold steel and are not prepared to maintain what they have won, if necessary with their fists.  The moral strength of an army which welcomes the closest personal encounter must exceed that of an army which depends for its victories only on being able to kill its foes at a distance.  The bayonet is the most powerful weapon we possess out here.  Firearms kill many of the enemy, but it is the white weapon that makes them run away.  Rifles can inflict the loss, but victory depends, for us at least, on the bayonets.

Of the losses we as yet know nothing, except that Lord Ava is seriously wounded, a sad item for which the only consolation is that the Empire is worth the blood of its noblest citizens.  But for the general result we rejoice.  Ladysmith, too, is proud and happy.  Only ten thousand of us, and look what we do!  A little reproachfully, perhaps; for it is dull work fighting week after week without alcohol or green vegetables.

Well, it looks as if their trials were very nearly over.  Sir Charles Warren’s Division marches to Frere to-day.  All the hospitals have been cleared ready for those who may need them.  If all’s well we shall have removed the grounds of reproach by this day week.  The long interval between the acts has come to an end.  The warning bell has rung.  Take your seats, ladies and gentlemen.  The curtain is about to rise.

‘High time, too,’ say the impatient audience, and with this I must agree; for, looking from my tent as I write, I can see the smoke-puff bulging on Bulwana Hill as ‘Long Tom’ toils through his seventy-second day of bombardment, and the white wisp seems to beckon the relieving army onward.

CHAPTER XV

THE DASH FOR POTGIETER’S FERRY

Spearman’s Hill:  January 13, 1900.

Secrets usually leak out in a camp, no matter how many people are employed to keep them.  For two days before January 10 rumours of an impending move circulated freely.  There are, moreover, certain signs by which anyone who is acquainted with the under machinery of an army can tell when operations are imminent.  On the 6th we heard that orders had been given to clear the Pietermaritzburg hospitals of all patients, evidently because new inmates were expected.  On the 7th it was reported that the hospitals were all clear.  On the 8th an ambulance train emptied the field hospitals at Frere, and that same evening there arrived seven hundred civilian stretcher-bearers—­brave men who had volunteered to carry wounded under fire, and whom the army somewhat ungratefully nicknames the ‘Body-snatchers.’  Nor were these grim preparations the only indications of approaching activity.  The commissariat told tales of accumulations of supplies—­twenty-one days’ packed in waggons—­of the collection of transport oxen and other details, meaningless by themselves, but full of significance when viewed side by side with other circumstances.  Accordingly I was scarcely surprised when, chancing to ride from Chieveley to Frere on the afternoon of the 10th, I discovered the whole of Sir Charles Warren’s division added to the already extensive camp.