was on its way to "Chief,
Pretoria," to tell him that the concentration ordered two days ago had
taken place. To us, following the fortunes of one small unit in the
great move, it will appear that in our forty-eight hours' association
with the New Cavalry Brigade everything has proceeded as could have
been desired by the master-mind. But it was not so. Almost before the
last of the horses had been detrained at Richmond Road, the whole
nature of, and necessity for, the movement had changed. In short,
everything had turned out as the brigadier had anticipated. Plumer,
with the tenacity for which he is famous, had clung to the rear-guard
of De Wet's column, snatching a waggon here and a tumbril there, until
he himself could move no farther. De Wet had outlasted him, and had,
moreover, seen that it would be useless to carry out his original
programme. So he doubled and doubled again, with the result that the
cleverly devised scheme of relays of driving columns was out of joint,
and a dozen units were uselessly spread out over the veldt a hundred
miles from the place in which the invader was catching his breath,
within jeering distance of the column which had ran itself stone-cold
in his pursuit. So within forty-eight hours of the start the whole
plan had to be reconstructed. This reconstruction was explained to
the New Cavalry Brigade through the medium of one hundred and four
telegrams which were awaiting its arrival at Britstown. As the
majority conveyed contradictory instructions, the piecing together of
the real meaning partook of the nature of one of those drawing-room
after-dinner games with which yawning guests at winter house-parties
are beguiled. The first cover that was opened deprived the brigadier
of his chief of the staff. That officer was ordered to proceed without
delay to take up the command of a mobile column to be formed at
Volksrust, the other end of the world--that is, the world with which
we are at present concerned.

"Don't open any more till we have fed," said the brigadier. "A man
with an empty stomach has no mind. We will have a fat high tea at the
local Carlton, and then devise strategy."

A general in the field is a great man. But a general in a town at
which half-a-dozen Colonial Corps have concentrated is of no account.
In the street men pass him by without recognition, and in hotels
private swashbucklers in smasher hats literally hustle him.

"This table is reserved for the commandant," sai