ROODEWAL

We were awakened the next morning while it was still dark.  I roamed about in the gloom searching for my errant Rosinante.  After describing half a dozen circles I returned to the waggon, to find the missing steed no longer astray, but peacefully grazing away about six feet from the aforesaid vehicle.  It was a demon of a horse, no doubt about that.  We upsaddled and stood shivering in the cold, our ears and noses fast becoming frostbitten, and waited for the body of the column to catch up to us, for it now appeared that everyone had gone to sleep where he pleased the night before.  De Wet was in a furious rage.

“I told them we were to be in Heilbron at sunrise!” he shouted.  “I wish the British would catch and castrate every one of them, so that they may be old women in reality.”

His railing did not accelerate the approach of the loiterers, and it was long after sunrise when we finally made a start for Heilbron—­nine miles distant.  When we neared the town Scheepers, myself, and another went forward to reconnoitre.  What was our surprise to find that the whole place was full of English!  They had suddenly entered the town the night before.  I at once went back and informed De Wet, who ordered the column to halt and outspan.  Testing the telegraph line, I found that whereas there were no British signals audible, our own signals from Frankfort could be heard very plainly.  The Frankfort telegraphist was busy calling Heilbron, not knowing that the town had again changed masters.  As his was an ordinary Morse instrument I could not communicate with him, but I did the next best thing by cutting the wire.  The presence of the enemy in Heilbron was a check for us.  We did not expect Colville to come forward so rapidly.  It was necessary to modify our plan of campaign, and De Wet and several of the commandants rode to a farm some six miles away to consult with the President, who had pitched his tent at that spot.  Scheepers was still away scouting.  His men made no effort to prepare any food, and as I was beginning to suffer from hunger the situation was anything but pleasant for me.  It is hard to realise the amount of selfishness which generally prevails in a laager or commando.  It is a case of everyone for himself.  There is no regular distribution of rations every day, as in other armies.  The commando is divided into messes of about ten men each.  To this mess is given every now and then a live ox and a bag of meal.  The ox is killed and cut into biltong, and the meal baked into stormjagers, a kind of dumpling fried in dripping.  Now Scheepers’ little corps, which consisted of half a dozen men, was probably not very well off itself in the matter of provisions—­in any case, they offered me none.  The commissariat consisted of nothing but oxen and meal, cold comfort for me.  I rode back a couple of miles to a spot where a field telegraph office had been opened.  Standing in the open veld under the telegraph line was a Cape cart, under the cart a telegraph instrument.  This was the office.