or nothing of what was going on.
Consequently one never knew what the next minute would bring forth,
and waited accordingly with ears at tension for the strains of the
bugle, whose notes might portend nothing or everything.

On this occasion they were the prelude to one of the most stirring
periods in the history of the war--the first great De Wet hunt. It is
beside the purport of this volume to discuss the advantages of British
infantry pursuing mounted Boers. It has often been maintained that the
result of such an apparently hopeless hare-and-tortoise sort of
procedure would have been successful on this occasion but for the fact
of the unblocking of Olifant's Nek. On the other hand, there are not
wanting many who are equally prepared to argue that, although this
bolt-hole being open may have facilitated the guerilla's escape, that
astute leader would easily have found some other nook or cranny quite
sufficient for his purpose had it been shut; while, if the worst had
come to the worst, from his point of view, he could, at the sacrifice
of his waggons and guns, have dissolved his commando in the night,
only to unite again at some more suitable and less column-infected
time and place.

At the time we knew nothing of all this; all we knew was that some big
move was in progress, for, as we neared the railway next day, train
after train steamed through, reminiscent of the vicinity of Epsom on a
Derby Day, but that was all. Where we were going, when we were going,
why we were going, were all questions quite beyond our ken--not to be
answered, indeed, until some days later, when an officer on General
Hunter's Staff told us what it was all about.

Our march to the railway on the 28th was a long and trying one,
variously computed at from twenty-one to twenty-three miles. Whatever
its exact length may have been is immaterial; it was the method in
which it was conducted that was so desperately trying. After the usual
sketchy apology for a breakfast, the column moved off with the
Somersets as advance-guard, and 'F' and 'G' company of the Dublins as
rearguard. From a variety of causes the progress was uncommonly slow,
and, no halt being made of greater length than a few minutes, the men
of the rearguard had a trying time, for any one who has marched
behind a column of waggons, &c., miles in length, knows that one
practically gets no halt at all from these five-minute snatches, owing
to the necessity of continually closing up.