ard trying to walk with our rifles hidden under our blankets, and,
moreover, every two minutes we had to look around to see if the sentry
at the camp had signalled any enemy in sight. This was to be done by
raising a pole on the highest hut. The result of our work was
splendid. We saw a Kaffir kraal on a hill, and to us "it was nothing
more." There were the heaps of _debris_ usually round a kraal, looking
most natural, but no heads were visible, and no trenches. There was
only one fault, and that was that a few thoughtless men began, as we
looked, to spread their brown army blankets out in the sun on top of
the huts and on the veldt. To the veriest new chum these square blots,
like squares of brown sticking-plaster all around the kraal, would
have betokened something unusual. To remedy this before it was too
late I hastened back.

After we had done our breakfasts, and some three hours after dawn, the
sentry in one of the huts reported a force to the north. We could do
nothing but wait and hope; everything was ready, and every man knew
what to do. No head was to be raised nor a rifle to be fired until I
whistled from my conning-tower; then every man would pop up and empty
his magazine into any of the enemy in range. If we were shelled the
men in the huts could at once drop into the deep trenches and be safe.
Standing in my "conning-tower," from the loopholes of which I could
see the drift, I thought over the possibilities before us. With great
luck perhaps the Boer scouts would pass us on either side, and so
allow us to lie low for the main body. With a view to seeing exactly
how far I would let the latter come before opening fire, and to
marking the exact spot when it would be best to give the word, I got
down into the firing-trenches facing the drift and the road south to
see how matters appeared from the level of the rifles. To my intense
horror, I found that from these trenches neither the drift nor the
road on the near bank of the river, until it got a long way south of
Waschout Hill, _could be seen_! The bulging convexity of the hill hid
all this; it must be _dead ground_! It was. The very spot where I
could best catch the enemy, where they _must_ pass, was not under my
fire! At most, the northern loopholes of the conning tower and one
other hut alone could give fire on the drift. How I cursed my
stupidity! However, it was no good. I could not now start digging
fresh trenches further down the hill; it would betray