At Noon It Was Evident There Would Be No Fight At The Drift
That Day, So We Started Along The Bank Of The River, With The Idea Of
Reaching The Bridge Before Nightfall.
The trail lay on the English
side of the river, so that we were in constant concern lest our
white-hooded Cape cart would be seen by some of their scouts and we
would be taken prisoners and forced to travel all the way back to
Cape Town.
We saw many herds of deer, but no scouts or lancers, and,
such being the effect of many kopjes, lost all ideas as to where we
were. We knew we were bearing steadily south toward Lord Roberts,
who as we later learned, was then some three miles distant.
About two o'clock his guns opened on our left, so we at least knew
that we were still on the wrong side of the river and that we must be
between the Boer and the English artillery. Except for that, our
knowledge of our geographical position was a blank, and we
accordingly "out-spanned" and cooked more bacon. "Outspanning" is
unharnessing the ponies and mules and turning them out graze, and
takes three minutes - "inspanning" is trying to catch them again, and
takes from three to five hours.
We started back over the trail over which we had come, and just at
sunset saw a man appear from behind a rock and disappear again.
Whether he was Boer or Briton I could not tell, but while I was
examining the rock with my glasses two Boers came galloping forward
and ordered me to "hands up." To sit with both arms in the air is an
extremely ignominious position, and especially annoying if the pony
is restless, so I compromised by waving my whip as high as I could
reach with one hand, and still held in the horse with the other.
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