Major-General French, who commanded, had been out from before daybreak with the Imperial Light Horse and the battery of the Natal Volunteer Artillery reconnoitring towards Elandslaagte.  The armoured train—­slate-colour plated engine, a slate-colour plated loopholed cattle-truck before and behind, an open truck with a Maxim at the tail of all—­puffed along on his right.  Elandslaagte is a little village and railway station seventeen miles north-east of Ladysmith, where two days before the Boers had blown up a culvert and captured a train.  That cut our direct communication with the force at Dundee.  Moreover, it was known that the Free State commandoes were massing to the north-west of Ladysmith and the Transvaalers to attack Dundee again.  On all grounds it was desirable to smash the Elandslaagte lot while they were still weak and alone.

The reconnaissance stole forward until it came in sight of the little blue-roofed village and the little red tree-girt station.  It was occupied.  The Natal battery unlimbered and opened fire.  A round or two—­and then suddenly came a flash from a kopje two thousand yards beyond the station on the right.  The Boer guns!  And the next thing was the hissing shriek of a shell—­and plump it dropped, just under one of the Natal limbers.  By luck it did not burst; but if the Boer ammunition contractor was suspect, it was plain that the Boer artillerist could lay a gun.  Plump:  plump:  they came right into the battery; down went a horse; over went an ammunition-waggon.  At that range the Volunteers’ little old 7-pounders were pea-shooters; you might as well have spat at the enemy.  The guns limbered up and were off.  Next came the vicious phutt! of a bursting shell not fifty yards from the armoured train—­and the armoured train was puffing back for its life.  Everybody went back half-a-dozen miles on the Ladysmith road to Modder Spruit Station.

The men on reconnaissance duty retired, as is their business.  They had discovered that the enemy had guns and meant fighting.  Lest he should follow, they sent out from Ladysmith, about nine in the morning, half a battalion apiece of the Devonshire and Manchester Regiments by train, and the 42nd Field Battery, with a squadron of the 5th Dragoon Guards, by road.  They arrived, and there fell on us the common lot of reconnaissances.  We dismounted, loosened girths, ate tinned meat, and wondered what we should do next.  We were on a billow of veldt that heaved across the valley:  up it ran, road and rail; on the left rose tiers of hills, in front a huge green hill blocked our view, with a tangle of other hills crowding behind to peep over its shoulders.  On the right, across the line, were meadows; up from them rose a wall of red-brown kopje; up over that a wall of grass-green veldt; over that was the enemy.  We ate and sat and wondered what we should do next.  Presently we saw the troopers mounting and the trains getting up steam; we mounted; and scouts, advance-guard, flanking