Searching carefully for the fault, my progress was slow, and it was
afternoon when the Johannesburg laager was reached. Here I found a
despatch-rider, who said that reinforcements had arrived at Spion Kop
early in the morning, that our men had immediately climbed the hill, and
that, the issue being very, uncertain, we might have to retreat during
the night.

The line was still interrupted, although I had repaired several faults.
I accordingly rode back to Spion Kop early the next morning. When I
entered the laager it was to find that all the waggons had already
retreated, and the tents standing deserted. Not quite deserted, for in
one of them half a dozen bodies were lying. The enemy had unexpectedly
retired during the night, and the entire commando was now on the hill,
gazing at the plentiful harvest reaped by our Nordenfeldts. Thither I
also went.

British ambulance men were busy collecting corpses. It was a mournful
sight; it seemed to me as if war really meant nothing else than
butchering men like sheep, quietly, methodically, and without any pomp
or circumstance.

"A sad sight!" I remarked to the British chaplain.

"They only did their duty," was his unfeeling reply. Duty! Is it any
man's duty to kill and be killed without knowing why? For what did these
poor Lancashire lads know or care about the merits of the war?

"What do you think the confounded English have had the cheek to do?"
asked a friend. "You know they always keep our wounded as prisoners when
they get the chance. Well, this morning their ambulance came here and