branches, fluttered from waggon tops. Our ambulance carts came along,
and the Tommies, stripping to the waist, proceeded to carry, one by one,
the Dutch wounded through the ford on stretchers.

We are bivouacked ourselves far up the river, in a secluded nook among
mimosas and kopjes with the thick current of the lately unknown, but now
too celebrated, Modder rolling in front of us. The weather has changed
of late. It is now autumn. We have occasional heavy rains, and you wake
up at night sometimes to find yourself adrift in a pool of water. It
gets chilly too.

The enemy are all about the place, and we interview them every morning
at daybreak, sometimes exchanging shots, sometimes not. We lay little
traps for each other, and vary our manoeuvres with intent to deceive.
This advance guard business (we are dealing here with the relief parties
of Boers that have come up between us and Bloemfontein) always reminds
me of two boxers sparring for an opening. A feint, a tap, a leap back,
both sides desperately on the alert and wary.

We lost poor Christian yesterday in one of these little encounters. He
was mortally wounded in stopping at short range to pick up a friend
whose horse had been shot. I have mentioned him, I think, to you in my
letters. There was no one in the corps more popular. "Tell the old dad I
died game," was what he said when the Major, coming up with supports,
knelt down to speak to him.

Nothing very noteworthy has occurred since the surrender. The army has
been quietly resting, taking stock of the prisoners, and sending them to
the railway, and we are expecting every day now the order to advance.
The enemy, meanwhile, have been collecting in some force, and are