ntended. The train leapt forward, ran the gauntlet of the guns,
which now filled the air with explosions, swung round the curve of the
hill, ran down a steep gradient, and dashed into a huge stone which
awaited it on the line at a convenient spot.

To those who were in the rear truck there was only a tremendous shock, a
tremendous crash, and a sudden full stop. What happened to the trucks in
front of the engine is more interesting. The first, which contained the
materials and tools of the breakdown gang and the guard who was watching
the line, was flung into the air and fell bottom upwards on the
embankment. (I do not know what befell the guard, but it seems probable
that he was killed.) The next, an armoured car crowded with the Durban
Light Infantry, was carried on twenty yards and thrown over on its side,
scattering its occupants in a shower on the ground. The third wedged
itself across the track, half on and half off the rails. The rest of the
train kept to the metals.

We were not long left in the comparative peace and safety of a railway
accident. The Boer guns, swiftly changing their position, re-opened
from a distance of 1,300 yards before anyone had got out of the stage of
exclamations. The tapping rifle fire spread along the hillside, until it
encircled the wreckage on three sides, and a third field gun came into
action from some high ground on the opposite side of the line.

To all of this our own poor little gun endeavoured to reply, and the
sailors, though exposed in an open truck, succeeded in letting off three
rounds before the barrel was struck by a shell, and the trunnions, being
smashed, fell altogether out of the carriage.

The armoured truck gave some protection from the bullets, but since any
direct shell must pierce it like paper and kill everyone, it seemed
almost safer outside, and, wishing to see the extent and nature of the
damage, I clambered over the iron shield, and, dropping to the ground,
ran along the line to the front of the train. As I passed the engine
another shrapnel shell burst immediately, as it seemed, overhead,
hurling its contents with a rasping rush through the air. The driver at
once sprang out of the cab and ran to the shelter of the overturned
trucks. His face was cut open by a splinter, and he complained in bitter
futile indignation. He was a civilian. What did they think he was paid
for? To be killed by bombshells? Not he. He would not stay another
minute. It looked as