The necessity for reinforcements seemed very real to me, for I have a wholesome respect for Boer military enterprise; and after the security of a great camp the dangers of our lonely unsupported perch on the hills came home with extra force.  ‘No Boers this side of the Tugela.’  How did we know?  We had not seen any, but the deep valleys along the river might easily conceal two thousand horsemen.  I said to myself, the Boer has always a reason for everything he does.  He left the Springfield bridge standing.  It would have cost him nothing to blow it up.  Why, then, had he neglected this obvious precaution?  Again, the position we had seized had actually been fortified by the enemy.  Why, then, had they abandoned it to a parcel of horsemen without a shot fired?  I could quite understand that the flooded Tugela was not a satisfactory feature to fight in front of, but it seemed certain that they had some devilry prepared for us somewhere.  The uninjured bridge appeared to me a trap:  the unguarded position a bait.  Suppose they were, we should be attacked at daylight.  Nothing more than a soldier should always expect; but what of the position?  The line we had to hold to cover the approaches to our hill-top was far greater than seven hundred men could occupy.  Had we been only cavalry and mounted men we could have fallen back after the position became untenable, but we were encumbered with four field-guns—­a source of anxiety, not of strength.  So I began to long for infantry.  Two thousand good infantry would make everything absolutely secure.  And ten miles away were infantry by thousands, all delighted to march every mile nearer the front.

We passed a wet and watchful night without food or sleep, and were glad to find the break of day unbroken by the musketry of a heavy attack.  From our lofty position on the heights the whole country beyond the Tugela was spread like a map.  I sat on a great rock which overhung the valley, and searched the landscape inch by inch with field glasses.  After an hour’s study my feeling of insecurity departed.  I learned the answer to the questions which had perplexed the mind.  Before us lay the ‘devilry’ the Boers had prepared, and it was no longer difficult to understand why the Springfield bridge had been spared and the heights abandoned.[2]

The ground fell almost sheer six hundred feet to the flat bottom of the valley.  Beneath, the Tugela curled along like a brown and very sinuous serpent.  Never have I seen such violent twists and bends in a river.  At times the waters seemed to loop back on themselves.  One great loop bent towards us, and at the arch of this the little ferry of Potgieter’s floated, moored to ropes which looked through the field glasses like a spider’s web.  The ford, approached by roads cut down through the steep bank, was beside it, but closed for the time being by the flood.  The loop of river enclosed a great tongue of land which jutted from the hills on the enemy’s