We were the first men from
outside they had seen in four months, and that was the extent of
their interest or information.
They had put on their best clothes,
and were walking along the track to Colenso to catch a train south to
Durban or to Maritzburg, to any place out of the neutral camp. They
might have been somnambulists for all they saw of us, or of the Boer
trenches and the battle-field before them. But we found them of
greatest interest, especially their clean clothes. Our column had
not seen clean linen in six weeks, and the sight of these civilians
in white duck and straw hats, and carrying walking-sticks, coming
toward us over the railroad ties, made one think it was Sunday at
home and these were excursionists to the suburbs.
We had been riding through a roofless tunnel, with the mountain and
the great dam on one side, and the high wall of the railway cutting
on the other, but now just ahead of us lay the open country, and the
exit of the tunnel barricaded by twisted rails and heaped-up ties and
bags of earth. Bulwana was behind us. For eight miles it had shut
out the sight of our goal, but now, directly in front of us, was
spread a great city of dirty tents and grass huts and Red Cross
flags - the neutral camp - and beyond that, four miles away, shimmering
and twinkling sleepily in the sun, the white walls and zinc roofs of
Ladysmith.
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