most among European armies." So say they all! The
German prisoner in Ceylon spoke words of truth and soberness when he
said our private soldier is in some respects our best general.

General Tommy Atkins I salute you! You are a credit to your country!

CHAPTER XII

THROUGH HELVETIA

[Sidenote: _The fighting near Belfast._]

On August 24th the tiny little town of Belfast was reached by General
Pole Carew's division, including the Guards' Brigade; but though our
advent was unopposed, there was heavy fighting on our right, where
General Buller, newly arrived from Natal, had the day before
approached the immensely strong Boer position at Bergendal. There the
Johannesburg police, the most valorous of all the burgher forces, made
their last heroic stand three days later, and were so completely wiped
out, that Kruger is reported to have been moved to tears when the
tidings reached him. It was the last stand the Boer still had nerve
enough to make, and after Belfast their continuous retreat quickened
into almost a rout. It was on Sunday, the 26th, the Guards moved out
to take part in the general assault, and waited for hours behind the
shelter of Monument Hill while General French developed his flanking
movement on the left. Boer bullets fell freely among us while thus
tarrying, and compelled our field hospital to retire further down the
slope to a position of comparative safety. Late that afternoon the
Guards marched over the brow to face what bade fair to be another
serious Sunday battle, yet without any slightest sign of flinching.
"How dear is life to all men," said dying Nelson. It may be so; but
these men and their officers from first to last, when duty called,
seemed never to count their lives dear unto them. A few casualties,
caused by chance bullets, occurred among them before the day closed,
but scarcely so much as a solitary Boer was seen by the clearest
sighted of them. Once again outflanked, "the brother" once again had
fled, and in the deepening darkness we groped our way to our next
camping ground.

In our Napoleonic wars the favourite command alike on land and sea
was, "Engage the enemy more closely." Each fleet or army kept well in
sight of its antagonist, and the fighting was often at such close
quarters that musket muzzle touched musket muzzle; but at Belfast Lord
Roberts' front was thirty miles in width, and our generals could only
guess where their foemen hid by watching for the fire-flash of