ning, came into contact with the Boers at
Abraham's Kraal, and (the river preventing a turning movement on the
north) he sent the second cavalry brigade galloping southward down the
line of the kopjes in order to turn, if possible, the enemy's left
flank. But he soon found that the position extended too far southward to
be assailable by his limited forces. This turning movement, or rather
the preparation for it, was carried out under an extremely heavy fire
from pom-poms and other quick-firing guns. Finding that his resources
would be exhausted in drawing out the long containing thread necessary
to hold the enemy in front, and so leave nothing with which to make a
flank attack, General French contented himself with engaging the enemy
on the northernmost end of their position.

At half-past one the Sixth Division arrived at Dreifontein, a farmhouse
about seven miles south of Abraham's Kraal. I had ridden hard in order
to catch them up as I had been in the early morning with the Ninth
Division, which did not arrive until four o'clock, and when I came up I
was just in time to see the Buffs, leading the 13th Brigade, preparing
to clear some kopjes near the main ridge which were held by the Boers.
Things were very hot here, and as I had never been in a big fight before
I found it very difficult to realise what was going on, or where the
enemy was, or where the fire was coming from, or at what point it was
being directed. All I knew for some time was that there were shells
dropping rather closer than was pleasant, and that with a rashness born
of ignorance I had got into a place where everyone had to lie down for
cover.

When your face is in the sand you do not see much. What you hear is not
encouraging--the distant boom of a gun, a few seconds' silence, then a
long quavering whistle in the air, like the cry of a banshee, growing
every moment nearer and louder, and finally the deafening report
somewhere near you. You never know where a shell is going to burst,
although you hear it long before it arrives; you can only sit tight and
hope that it will go where the other fellows are, or better still where
no one is. To say truth, shells generally go where no one is; I saw only
one man killed by a shell. I had raised my head from the ground and was
listening for the burst of a coming shell, when I saw a man among the
advance ranks of the 13th Brigade on my right stop suddenly in the midst
of a blinding flash. An arm and hand flew