Chapter XI: Full Cry 292 (8)

It was midnight before the mess servants could turn out a meal at Brandewijnskuil for the staff. Two doleful candles but added to the depression bred of the hour and the disappointment which was uppermost in every mind. We had had our chance and failed. The brigadier alone was philosophic: his natural gaiety would not allow of depression: his manly spirit would not collapse against the ruling of the laws of chance.

_Brigadier._ "Wake up, you coves, and come and have some dinner. We have lost ole man De Wet; but that is no reason for you all to behave as if we were in for a funeral. Thank Heaven that you are alive. You would probably have all been scuppered if we had got up with the ole man. He would have fought until he was blue in the face!"

_Brigade-Major._ "I've got the orders out, sir. Start at 3 A.M.!"

_Brigadier._ "That's all right, but we won't see any more of De Wet. We were too hot on him to-day. All we shall find when we cross the Riet at daybreak to-morrow will be _spoor_ leading in every direction. They will dissolve to a certainty. But though we have failed, we have had a run for our money, and finished a d----d good second. But no maps and no guide are big things as penalties go, and, all considered, I think that the 'crush' has run devilish well. What have your prisoners got to say, Mr Intelligence?"

But Mr Intelligence, having drunk his soup, was sound asleep in his blankets....

FOOTNOTES:

[40] Another curious episode in this strange campaign can be observed here. We had been in nominal possession of the Southern Free State for many months, during a considerable period of which the local administration had been administered by British agents. Yet throughout this period Boer landrosts were also appointed, and whenever a commando strong enough to assert the Orange Free State authority was in the vicinity, immediately took over their duties. Often, it is believed, the same men acted for both belligerents. When Judge Hertzog made his tour of the South-Western Free State immediately before entering upon his invasion of the Colony, he reinstated the Boer administration in all the southern townships.

[41] De Wet never moved without an advance-, flank-, and rear-guard, removed from him to a distance of about six to eight miles. This screen always gave him ample notice of any British troops in the vicinity, thus enabling him to change his direction and suit his action with calmness and deliberation. These screens were always composed of picked men.

L'ENVOI.

With the crossing of the Riet the history of this De Wet hunt ceases, for everything came to pass precisely as the brigadier had foreseen. The brigade arrived at Kalabas bridge before daybreak, prepared, if a tangible enemy was still in front, to take up the running again and pursue the line to an end, no matter the cost.[42] But the soft ground on the far side of the river gave evidence of thirty trails. The commando had scattered to the winds, and as, with cunning foresight, De Wet and his following had removed every living soul, Boer or Kaffir, from the vicinity of the bridge, no evidence of his presence remained. To pursue a fugitive in a solitary Cape cart with a brigade would have been absurd, and so, when five miles on at Openbaar there was no sign of the solitary tracks again converging, the chase was abandoned, and the brigade halted to await the arrival of its mule and ox convoy. That evening Plumer, who had detrained at Jagersfontein road, crossed the Kalabas bridge and reported Haig to be in rear of him at the Spitz Kopjes. It will be seen therefore that Plumer was twenty-four hours too late,--through no fault of his, be it said, but simply because he made the journey from Orange River station by train. Plumer pushed on upon the conjectured De Wet trail, which he still considered hot enough to follow. He lost it, as the brigadier had foreseen, in the vicinity of Abraham's Kraal. The new cavalry brigade moved more slowly into Bloemfontein by way of Petrusburg and the historic field of Driefontein.

At Bloemfontein some changes took place in the staff and composition of the brigade, and the writer of this narrative, to his infinite regret, severed his connection with the brigade. He had been promoted into a new battalion which was being raised at home, and after twenty months his turn had come to say good-bye to the veldt. As the brigadier bade him farewell in the Bloemfontein Club he clapped him good-naturedly on the back, saying, "I believe that it is all a hoax this story of yours about instructions to proceed home by the first transport. I don't believe that you will ever get farther South than that farm at Richmond Road!"

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] The orders issued this night to the brigade were very instructive, and showed what a real soldier the brigadier was. If he considered that the circumstances demanded an effort he was prepared to take any risk and to make every sacrifice. The orders stated that if it became necessary to pursue, the convoy would be sent back by the shortest route to the railway, that the mounted men would have to live on the country without supply, and such men whose horses gave in would have to walk east against the course of the sun, which line, after 20 to 25 miles, would bring them to the railway, where they could stop the first passing train.

* * * * *

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.

* * * * *

BY "LINESMAN."

WORDS BY AN EYEWITNESS:
THE STRUGGLE IN NATAL.

Eleventh Impression. With a new Preface.
Crown 8vo, 6s.

"Among the many books which have found their birth in the
campaign against the Boers, this one stands out, not merely on
account of the author's literary merits, keen power of
observation, and attractive phraseology, but in its unprejudiced
sentiments and clever handling of battle impressions hitherto
unattempted by contemporary writers. It is the work of an
artist."--_Times_.

THE MECHANISM OF WAR.

Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.

"The new writer best worth talking about is 'Linesman.' He comes
with no tricks of style to entrance mercurial critics. A style
he has, but lit is inseparable from his matter, and that is his
own. It is a satisfaction to find a new writer who has something
to say and says it in a manner that cannot be imitated by the
rapt connoisseurs of cake-walk writing; but it is not a
surprise, for 'Linesman's' theme is War, and he is equal to
it."--_Academy_.

"Throughout the book we recognise a mind which seizes on the
essentials, and sees things in their true proportion,--a mind
which, while it never loses sight of the whole, knows which
details to enforce so that the reader may grasp that whole
too."--_Spectator_.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.

NEW SIX-SHILLING NOVELS.

THE ADVENTURES OF M. D'HARICOT. By J. STORER CLOUSTON, Author
of 'The Lunatic at Large,' &c. Second Impression.

EPISODES OF RURAL LIFE. By W.E.W. COLLINS, Author of 'A
Scholar of his College,' 'The Don and the Undergraduate,'
&c.

A WOMAN AND A CREED. By H. GARTON SARGENT.

THE COLONEL SAHIB. A Novel. By GARRETT MILL. Second
Impression.

MONSIEUR MARTIN: A Romance of the Great Swedish War. By WYMOND
CAREY.

"Deserves to be called a great novel.... A book of sterling
merits, wholesome human interest, and adequate
learning."--_Guardian_.

THE PRINCE OF THE CAPTIVITY. By SYDNEY C. GRIER, Author of
'The Kings of the East,' 'Peace with Honour,' &c.

"This clever novel. It is well worth reading."--_Outlook_.

THE MOST FAMOUS LOBA. By NELLIE K. BLISSETT, Author of
'Wisdom of the Simple,' 'Brass,' &c. With a Frontispiece.

"Told with a grace and simplicity truly exquisite.... The
intricacies of the story cannot be traced here, still less is it
possible to suggest its incommunicable charm."--_Daily
Chronicle_.

JOE WILSON AND HIS MATES. By HENRY LAWSON, Author of 'The
Country I Come From,' 'While the Billy Boils,' &c.

"A volume of realistic stories of Bush-life.... Will be eagerly
read by men and women who have experienced the loneliness and
the roughness of the needy emigrant's part."--_Spectator_.

BUSH-WHACKING. By HUGH CLIFFORD, C.M.G. Second Impression.

"The stories reach a masterly level of vivid colouring, wide
sympathy, and genuine insight."--_Athenæum_.

DOOM CASTLE. By NEIL MUNRO. Second Impression.

"Since 'Catriona' and 'Kidnapped' there has been no Scottish
novel of more unmistakable genius."--_British Weekly_.

LORD JIM. A Tale. By JOSEPH CONRAD. Second Impression.

"A most original, remarkable, and engrossing
novel."--_Spectator_.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.

* * * * *

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Typographical errors corrected in text: |
| |
| Page 195: Dewetsdrop replaced with Dewetsdorp |
| Page 257: directy replaced with directly |
| |
| On page 321, the word battue is not a typographical error.|
| A battue is a hunt in which beaters force the game to |
| flee in the direction of the hunter. |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+