old man,"
said the sergeant. "None of your blooming us," said the sentry, and shot
the sergeant dead.

However the sentry was soon persuaded, and when I passed the outpost,
the sentry who should really have stopped me and examined my passport
treated me as a field-officer and presented arms, so I rode away back to
the dust of Modder. There I collected as much forage as possible, and
the next day rode back with my caravan to Jacobsdaal. Once more there
was a block. The front forty miles away; no more forage, no rations
even; and I starved officially, but was entertained privately by the
commandant. The front was reaching away forward along the road to
Bloemfontein; and as telegrams had to be censored there and handed in at
Modder River, fifty miles away, and as I had no despatch riders, I
decided that the game was up on this line. A dose of fever helped my
decision, and held me afterwards at Modder when great things were
happening at Paardeberg. But for the day during which I stayed in
Jacobsdaal I studied the little town and its alien inhabitants.

Jacobsdaal stands four-square on the northern bank of the Riet River,
eleven miles east-south-east from Modder; and the manner of its
occupation, as described to me by General Wavell (who captured it on the
15th of February and remained in it as commandant), seems to have been
surprisingly neat and effectual. General Chermside, commanding the 14th
Brigade, left Enslin on the 11th and marched to Ramdam, where he was
joined by General Wavell, commanding the 15th Brigade, who had moved
from Graspan. From Ramdam the two brigades marched almost due east to
Dekiel's Drift, which they were delayed in crossing during the whole of
the 13th. They started again on the next evening and made a night march
to Wegdraai, where they arrived at four o'clock on the morning of the
15th. An officer of the North Staffordshire Regiment told me that he
never saw anything so impressive as that night march. The horizon was
level all round like the sea, and all night long it was alive with
streams of lightning that lighted up the plain with the brigade crawling
across it through the thunder. On the 15th General Wavell's brigade was
detached, and at midday started to march upon Jacobsdaal. The brigade
was strengthened by about seventy men of the C.I.V. (who acted as
scouts) and by a battery of artillery. The North Staffordshires acted as
advance guard, the South Wales Borderers and the Cheshire Regime