eer reparation party, defending the new railway bridge
which replaces destroyed one. Boers began attack at daybreak with two
or three guns and a pompom, shelling the position hard. They then
advanced, and completely surrounded him with mauser fire, keeping it
up from 6.20 a.m. to 11.45 a.m., and it was hotly returned. English
signalled early to me at Heidelberg, thirteen miles off, that he was
surrounded, and holding his own confidently. I started from Heidelberg
with two guns, a pompom, 130 Somersets, and 140 Marshall's Horse and
Yeomanry, and, on approaching English's position, found he had already
beaten off the enemy, and saw them assembled on the heights N.E. of
his position, and beginning to ride off N.E. My guns opened fire, and
Boers broke into a gallop. The complete repulse of the Boer attack is
entirely due to the skill with which Major English had fortified his
position, his vigilant arrangements, and the good fighting of the
garrison. Casualties: wounded--Lieutenant Greig, severely; Privates
Mallon, Stanton, and O'Brien, slightly. The bridge and train not
injured. Line only injured to the extent of three rails taken up.
Numbers of enemy's casualties not known. Boers sent out an ambulance
for wounded, and were seen burying dead."'

The following extracts from a letter from Sapper F. Adcock, published
in a home newspaper, are also of interest. After a brief description
of the situation, he continues:--'It was at this time that the
heliographers of the Dublin's showed their pluck, for, fixing up their
stand amidst shot and shell, they got their message through to
Heidelberg.... We could watch every move of the Dublins, as the ditch
ran in the line of their kopje.... Another bit of pluck well worth
seeing happened just as there was a lull in the firing. Two of the
Dublins ran from their entrenchments to their tents, quite a quarter
of a mile, and carried all their bread in a blanket between them to
the entrenchments. The Boers fired three shells at them when they were
going back, but two fell short, and the other was right between them.'

The sapper was right, and it is pleasant to read letters like the
above when emanating from an entirely independent source. Major
English reported most favourably of the signalling, which was
necessarily conducted practically in the open, the enemy's projectiles
falling all round the operator and Major English, who stood close
beside him. For this service Private Farrelly, who