Why They Should Be
Still Advancing In That Dense Clump We Do Not Now Know, Nor Can We
Surmise What Thoughts Were Passing Through The Mind Of The Gallant
And Experienced Chieftain Who Walked Beside Them.
There are some
who claim on the night before to have seen upon his strangely
ascetic face that shadow of doom which is summed up in the one word
'fey.' The hand of coming death may already have lain cold upon his
soul.
Out there, close beside him, stretched the long trench,
fringed with its line of fierce, staring, eager faces, and its
bristle of gun-barrels. They knew he was coming. They were ready.
They were waiting. But still, with the dull murmur of many feet,
the dense column, nearly four thousand strong, wandered onwards
through the rain and the darkness, death and mutilation crouching
upon their path.
It matters not what gave the signal, whether it was the flashing of
a lantern by a Boer scout, or the tripping of a soldier over wire,
or the firing of a gun in the ranks. It may have been any, or it
may have been none, of these things. As a matter of fact I have
been assured by a Boer who was present that it was the sound of the
tins attached to the alarm wires which disturbed them. However this
may be, in an instant there crashed out of the darkness into their
faces and ears a roar of point-blank fire, and the night was
slashed across with the throbbing flame of the rifles.
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