78 Pages - The Black Vault

they must have lost 20 or 30 men killed and wot]ndedNext morning, with so many men out of rny original40 out of action (not to include Wascnout Hill, whoselosses I did not know) matters seemed to he serious,and I was greatly afraid that another [Iiqht would bethe ~nd of us. I was pleased to see t’;l tt}e detacl!-ment on ‘.’Vaschout Hill had still got it 1!well ii;], fllthey had hoisted a re(l ‘ ‘g at the t>thea(J. “1rLJe,this v, ~s not th - ‘dtion? ~lag, prli’ orlly a rmerehar?k ?l’-;f. t.)tir II was not white. l“he day wore onwith intermittent shelling and sniping, and WP allfelt t!’ at tne enemy must have by now guessed ourweakness, and were saving themselves for anothernight attack, reiying upon our being tired out. Wedid our best to snatch a little sleep by turns d~]rir]gthe”day, and I did all I could to keep the spirits’of thelittle ~~rce lJp by saying tl~at relief cc Ild not be veryfar off. But it was with a gloomy desperation at bestthat we saw the day wear on and m(rning turr! ,:ltoafternoon.The Boer guns had not been firing for some twohours, and the silence was just beginning to get irritatingand mysterious, when the booming of guns inthe distance aroused us to the highest pitch of excitement.We were saved! We could not say whatguns these were–they might be British or Boer–but, ar?yway, it proved the neighbourhood of anotherforce. All faces lighted up, for somehow the welcomesound at once drew the tired feeling out of us.In order to prevent any chance of the fresh forcemissing our whereabouts, I collected a few men andat once started to fire some good old British volleysinto the scrub, “Ready--present-fire!!,” which werenot to be mistaken. Shortly afterwards we heard71