figures scattered over the red veld. It was De Wet's commandos caught
napping. Just before the shell fire our burghers had gone out ahead
hell-for-leather on either flank. The whole column then advanced. After
two hours' pretty hot work the action was over. We lost six killed
against the rebels' twenty-two, and with twenty wounded on our side the
rebel losses were proportionate. We took upwards of three hundred
prisoners, De Wet himself escaping by the merest fluke. He lost all his
transport, and generally ceased after the action to be a serious
menace.

During the operations against De Wet I watched, when possible, the
demeanour of the quiet South African patriot with whom fate had placed
me in the field. I had last seen him many years before, gravely bowing
from under a silk hat to a crowd that swayed and cheered as he drove
through the streets of Manchester. And now duty found him in the field
against an old comrade-in-arms. There was a sadness, there was a
profound pathos about it. No wonder if to me it seemed that General
Botha looked downcast indeed, if stern as well, during the Rebellion.
Life, surely, was not dealing too fairly by him.

Following Mushroom Valley, we trekked, with two brief outspans only, to
Clocolan, all the time scattering De Wet's followers. At Clocolan we
paused for one day, entrained men and horses and reached Kimberley, via
Bloemfontein, on the 18th of November. The following day rebel
activities were reported in the direction of Bloemhof; but after an
eventless journey we returned to Kimberley on the 21st.



SECTION III