We shall be able to post letters to-day, and the reason this one is so extremely dirty is that I am finishing it in a drizzling rain, being on picket guard a couple of miles up the river, not far from the scene of yesterday’s shooting.  The Boers are on the bustle this morning.  One can see them cantering about on the plain just across the river, where thousands of their cattle are grazing.  In front the big-gun hill glimmers blue in the mist.  Two or three of the enemy have crept up the woody river-course and tried a shot at us; some close; the bullets making a low, quick whistle as they flit overhead.  My two companions—­there are three of us—­are still blazing an indignant reply at the distant bushes.  By the amount of fire tap, tap, tapping like an old woodpecker all round the horizon, it seems that there is a sudden wish for a closer acquaintanceship among the pickets generally this morning.  Those fellows in the river are at it again!

LETTER XIII

POPLAR GROVE

March 8, 1900.

We left our camp on Modder River at midnight of the 6th.  The night was clear and starlit, but without moon.  Moving down the river to take up our position in the flank march, we passed battalion after battalion of infantry moving steadily up to carry the position in front.  The plan is this.  The infantry advance up the river as if to deliver a frontal attack; but meanwhile the mounted troops, which have started during the night, are to make a wide detour to the right and get round at the back of the Boer position, so as to hem them in.  The idea sounds a very good one, but our plans were upset by the Boers not waiting to be hemmed in.  However, it is certain that if they had waited we should have hemmed them in.  You must remember that.

The guns go rumbling past in the darkness.  We are on the right of the column.  Along our left we can just distinguish a long, black river of figures moving solidly on.  It flows without break or gap.  Now and then a jar or clank, the snort of a horse, the rattle of chains, rises above the murmur, but underneath all sounds the deep-toned rumbling of the wheels as the English guns go by.

Close in front of us is a squadron of Lancers, their long lances, slender, and black, looking like a fringe of reeds against the fast paling sky, and behind us there is cavalry without end.  The morning is beautifully clear with a lovely sunrise, and that early hour, with horses fresh, prancing along with a great force of mounted men, always seems to me one of the best parts of the whole show.

As soon as we can see distinctly we make out that we have got to the south of the enemy’s hills, and are marching along their flanks.  They look like a group of solid indigo pyramids against the sunrise.  Are those kopjes out of range? is a question that suggests itself as we draw alongside, leaving them wide on our port beam.  Yes, no!  No! a lock of smoke, white as snow, lies suddenly on the dark hillside, followed by fifteen seconds of dead silence.  Then comes the hollow boom of the report, and immediately afterwards the first whimper, passing rapidly into an angry roar of the approaching shell, which bursts close alongside the Lancers.  “D——­d good shot,” grunts the next man to me, with sleepy approval, as indeed it is.