th supports,
knelt down to speak to him.

Nothing very noteworthy has occurred since the surrender. The army has
been quietly resting, taking stock of the prisoners, and sending them to
the railway, and we are expecting every day now the order to advance.
The enemy, meanwhile, have been collecting in some force, and are
evidently prepared to dispute our march east. Yesterday we had a duel
with a gun which they have managed, goodness knows how, to drag up to
the top of a commanding hill some miles up the river. However, it was
too strongly placed. We lost several men. The enemy's fire was very
accurate, and they ended up by sending three shots deliberately one
after the other right into our ambulance waggons.

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 rem