nothing to the sound produced in a
really big pitched battle. But it was confusing enough, and, what with
the baffling effect of the cross-fire, the whining in the air, and the
continuous noise of the explosions, the rattle and crackle of musketry,
the galloping hither and thither of orderlies and messengers, and the
unpleasantness resulting from the whole thing's happening in so small an
area, provided excitement enough to satisfy the most jaded adventurer.

In colder language what had happened was this. The commando that had
been holding on for days on our right as we marched had got ahead of us
when we diverted towards Plumer, had effected a junction with a force
sent out from Mafeking to oppose us, and had just arrived in position
near Israel's Farm when we came up against them. Fortunately they had
not time to entrench, but they were just going to begin when we turned
them, as we found picks and spades lying about in rear of their
northward artillery position. From the large outline of their attack
there must have been at least 2,000 of them, and from the cleverness
with which they were disposed we at first estimated them at twice that
number. We held them on our right while we sent a strong force working
round on our left, which ultimately got out far enough to turn their
right. Of course we were too few to do more than dislodge them;
surrounding was out of the question; so when we had fairly turned them
we "let go" on the right, and the Boers fled in that direction. The
house at Israel's Farm they held until the very end, shelling our
rear-guard briskly. The engagement lasted close on five hours, during
which our casualties amounted to less than forty.

In even fewer words than these (so concise is his art) the military
despatch-writer might have described those eventful hours; and one takes
a kind of pleasure in trying to imitate him, so supremely inadequate are
such sentences to produce any real impression on people who have never
found themselves in the midst of a battle. Not that any art of written
words is equal to it. One goes through the whole gamut of sensation; one
is charmed, afraid, bewildered; charmed by the scale and magnitude of
the operations, afraid for one's own skin, bewildered with a kind of
dream at the strangeness of it all. One may sit, as I sat, under a tree
listening and watching for hours; and from the grossly and crudely real
the thing fades and changes into an unreal image of the sense