l the
stations on the line were fitted with special platforms three or four
hundred yards long, consisting of earth embankments revetted with wood
towards the line and sloping to the ground on the other side. The
horsemen were thereby enabled to ride their horses out of the trucks,
and in a few minutes all were cantering away across the plain. One of
the Boer guards noticed the attention I paid to these arrangements. 'It
is in case we have to go back quickly to the Biggarsberg or Laing's
Nek,' he explained. As we travelled on I gradually fell into
conversation with this man. His name, he told me, was Spaarwater, which
he pronounced _Spare-_water. He was a farmer from the Ermolo district.
In times of peace he paid little or no taxes. For the last four years he
had escaped altogether. The Field Cornet, he remarked, was a friend of
his. But for such advantages he lay under the obligation to serve
without pay in war-time, providing horse, forage, and provisions. He was
a polite, meek-mannered little man, very anxious in all the discussion
to say nothing that could hurt the feelings of his prisoners, and I took
a great liking to him. He had fought at Dundee. 'That,' he said, 'was a
terrible battle. Your artillery? _Bang! bang! bang_! came the shells all
round us. And the bullets! _Whew_, don't tell me the soldiers can't
shoot. They shoot jolly well, old chappie. I, too, can shoot. I can hit
a bottle six times out of seven at a hundred yards, but when there is a
battle then I do not shoot so well.'

The other man, who understood a little English, grinned at this, and
muttered something in Dutch.

'What does he say?' I inquired.

'He says "He too,"' replied Spaarwater. 'Besides, we cannot see your
soldiers. At Dundee I was looking down the hill and saw nothing except
rows of black boots marching and the black belts of one of the
regiments.'

'But,' I said, 'you managed to hit some of them after all.'

He smiled, 'Ah, yes, we are lucky, and God is on our side. Why, after
Dundee, when we were retiring, we had to cross a great open plain, never
even an ant-hill, and you had put twelve great cannons--I counted
them--and Maxims as well, to shoot us as we went; but not one fired a
shot. Was it not God's hand that stopped them? After that we knew.'

I said: 'Of course the guns did not fire, because you had raised the
white flag.'

'Yes,' he answered, 'to ask for armistice, but not to give in. We are
not going to give in yet.