saw a chance of carrying him away.

Some of us fell asleep from fatigue. One of our men on waking heard the
hiss of a bullet over his head at regular intervals, and thought that a
khaki had got closer up to him, and was firing at him from the side.
When he lifted his head he found that he had rolled away from all cover.
One, two, three, back he was again behind his ant-hill, and the
scoundrel stopped firing at him. It was lucky for us that the enemy were
such bad shots, or not many of us would have lived to tell the tale.

When our cannon at last, towards evening, condescended to bombard the
enemy, the firing almost wholly ceased, and we made use of that
favourable opportunity to get back to the donga. We had lain nine hours
behind those ant-hills, and, strange to say, there were only two wounded
on our side. We decided not to run the same risk again. In this way we
lost our confidence in men like the brothers Erasmus, General and
Commandant, who, in the first place, were incapable of organizing a good
plan of attack, and, secondly, never took part in a battle.

The months spent near Ladysmith were to most of us the most tedious of
the whole war. We had so little to do, and the heat between the glowing
rocks of the kopjes was awful. The little work we had was anything but
pleasant; it consisted chiefly in keeping guard either by day or by
night. In the beginning a very bad watch was kept. Later on we had to
climb the kopje at least every alternate evening to pass the long nights
in our positions, while not far behind us stood our empty tents.

When we got back in the morning with our bundles on our backs, dead
tired, we simply 'flopped' on to a stone, and sat waiting for our cup of
coffee, either gazing at the lovely landscape or at the dirty camp,