e, in fact
until an officer pointed out that our camp was in full view of the Boer
outposts on Spion Kop, while the infantry camps were hidden by a turn of
the hill. Evidently a complex and deeply laid scheme was in progress.

In the interval, while the South African Light Horse were preparing for
the march, I rode up to Gun Hill to watch the operation of seizing the
near kopjes, which stood on the tongue of land across the river, and as
nearly as possible in the centre of the horseshoe position of the enemy.
The sailors were hauling their two great guns to the crest of the hill
ready to come into action to support the infantry attack. Far below, the
four battalions crept through the scrub at the foot of the hills towards
the ferry. As they arrived at the edge of the open ground the long
winding columns dissolved into sprays of skirmishers, line behind line
of tiny dashes, visible only as shadows on the smooth face of the
veldt, strange formations, the result of bitter practical experience.
Presently the first line--a very thin line--men twenty paces
apart--reached the ferry punt and the approaches to the Waggon Drift,
and scrambled down to the brim of the river. A single man began to wade
and swim across, carrying a line. Two or three others followed.
Then a long chain of men, with arms locked--a sort of human
caterpillar--entered the water, struggled slowly across, and formed up
under the shelter of the further bank. All the time the Boers, manning
their trenches and guns, remained silent. The infantry of the two
leading battalions were thus filtering uneventfully across when the time
for the cavalry column to start arrived.

There was a subdued flutter of excitement as we paraded, for though both
our destination and object were unknown, it was clearly understood that
the hour of action had arrived. Everything was moving. A long cloud of
dust rose up in the direction of Springfield. A column of
infantry--Coke's Brigade--curled out of its camp near Spearman's Hill,
and wound down towards the ferry at Potgieter's. Eight curiously
proportioned guns (naval 12-pounders), with tiny wheels and thin
elongated barrels, were passed in a string, each tied to the tail of a
waggon drawn by twenty oxen. The howitzer battery hurried to follow; its
short and squat pieces, suggesting a row of venomous toads, made a
striking contrast. As the darkness fell the cavalry column started. On
all sides men were marching through the night: mu