ther on, quite out of reach; so the service arranged for them
inevitably fell through.

But on Saturday afternoon a set of ambulance waggons arrived, bringing
in the first instalment of about 170 wounded men belonging to that
same division. It was rumoured that the K.O.S.B.'s, in a sort of
outpost affair, had landed in a Boer trap, planted of course near a
convenient kopje; with the result that our ambulances were, as usual,
speedily required. In the course of the campaign some of our troops
developed a decided proficiency in finding such traps--by falling into
them!

Nevertheless, two battalions of Guards remained in camp, and they, at
any rate, might be confidently relied on for a parade next morning.
Indeed, one of the majors in charge, a devout Christian worker, told
me he had purposed to himself conduct a service for my men if I had
not arrived; and for that I thanked him heartily. Moreover, the men
just then were busy gathering fuel and piling it for a camp-fire
concert, to commence soon after dark that evening. Clearly, then, the
Guards were anchored for some time to come, though their comrades
beyond the river had vanished.

I had yet to learn that the coming Sunday was "All Fools' Day," and
that for those who had been busy thus scheming it was fittingly so
called. At the mess that very evening our usual "orders" informed us
that the men would parade for worship at 6.45 next morning; but
within a few minutes a telegram arrived requiring the Coldstream
battalion and half the Grenadiers to entrain for Bloemfontein at once,
thence to proceed to some unnamed destination; and every man to take
with him as much ammunition as he could carry. So, instead of a big
bonfire and their blankets, the men at a moment's notice had to face a
long night journey in open trucks, with the inspiring prospect of a
severe fight at that journey's end. Nothing daunted, every man
instantly got ready to obey the call; and just before midnight forty
truck-loads of fighting men set out, they knew not whither, to meet
they knew not what; but cheerily singing, as the train began to move,
"The anchor's weighed." It was indeed!

"What does it all mean?" asked one lad of another; but though vague
rumours of disaster were rife,--(it proved to be the day of the
Sanna's Post mishap),--nothing definite was known; and on the eve of
"All Fools' Day" it seemed doubly wise to be wholesomely incredulous.
So I retired to my shelter, made of biscuit bo