Several Times A Short Halt Was Called To
Make Sure Of The Bearings.
At last, in the black cold hours which
come between midnight and morning, the column swung to the left out
of the road.
In front of them, hardly visible, stretched a long
black kopje. It was the very Nicholson's Nek which they had come to
occupy. Carleton and Adye must have heaved a sigh of relief as they
realised that they had actually struck it. The force was but two
hundred yards from the position, and all had gone without a hitch.
And yet in those two hundred yards there came an incident which
decided the fate both of their enterprise and of themselves.
Out of the darkness there blundered and rattled five horsemen,
their horses galloping, the loose stones flying around them. In the
dim light they were gone as soon as seen. Whence coming, whither
going, no one knows, nor is it certain whether it was design or
ignorance or panic which sent them riding so wildly through the
darkness. Somebody fired. A sergeant of the Fusiliers took the
bullet through his hand. Some one else shouted to fix bayonets. The
mules which carried the spare ammunition kicked and reared. There
was no question of treachery, for they were led by our own men, but
to hold two frightened mules, one with either hand, is a feat for a
Hercules. They lashed and tossed and bucked themselves loose, and
an instant afterwards were flying helter skelter through the
column.
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