frank faces, and said bluntly that they had not believed in the war, or taken part in it except under compulsion. They told us that no notice was given them; that the commanders or field cornets rode up to their houses, and ordered them to fall in and follow at once. The legalised penalty for refusal was death. To compare these men with the miscreant we captured after he had ensnared some of our men with a false flag of truce would be like comparing cultivation with barbarism-a Londoner with a cave-dweller. This scoundrel wore stiff, bristling hair all round a face whose features were those of a primitive

man.

In their kopjes at Belmont the ground was littered with cartridges, every one of which bore the mark of the leading London makers. This was true of everything else that was captured, or left behind by these "Orange Free Staters"; everything of theirs bore English marks. It was not until we met with a Transvaal commando at the battle of Graspan (otherwise called Enslin and Royslaagte) that we saw any exception to this rule.

CHAPTER XV

BATTLE OF GRASPAN

T1

HE battle of Belmont, with which Lord Methuen opened the ball on his side of the Republics, was almost wholly an infantry fight, but that at Graspan was rather more an artillery duel; in fact, the artillery came into greater play and prominence as the battles succeeded one another.

Although the British infantry had borne brave. part and suffered considerable losses, the last two victories had been greatly accelerated by cannon, and the next one was to see our batteries more conspicuous still. The nature of the Boer defences, and the Boer dread of artillery, have brought this about.

The battle of Graspan was called "Enslin" officially by the army, and Royslaagte by the Boers, but the word "Graspan" was painted on the railway station signboard beside the position occupied

by our left, and so strongly had the name taken root that no other need be used in treating of that fight.

The Boers fortified themselves on a series of low steep hills, broken at the left by a long, grassy ridge, which linked a smaller stony kopje to the larger ones. On this smaller kopje a Transvaal commando fought with German ammunition-the first Transvaalers and the first foreign ammunition used against us. Before the battle opened some of us saw Boers as thick as ants on a grassy ridge, moving over to the larger kopjes.

It was at about six o'clock in the morning of the 26th that fire was opened on a party of Rimington's scouts who were in advance of us. Then our troops marched into position facing the larger kopjes, and half an hour later our batteries opened fire on the rocks which hid the enemy. The naval battery in the centre, at five thousand yards distance, joined with the shorter-range artillery in bursting shrapnel with unvarying accuracy over the enemy. The Boers as repeatedly shot beyond and behind our men. They seemed to have guns everywhere, stationed singly all over the hills.

Soon after seven o'clock the excellent marksmanship of a gunner behind the grassy ridge attracted

the attention, and perhaps stirred the pride, of our gunners, and the naval battery undertook to silence him. Then began a very dramatic and longsustained combat which was a striking feature of the battle. The Boer gun was never seen, and the man who served it never once saw us. His piece was hidden beyond the ridge on the further slope, and a comrade gave him his range and direction.

For a long time this gunner devoted his attention to one of our field batteries. Next he attacked the black mass made by their horses and limbers. Later he paid his respects to the naval gun and its crew. He never achieved perfect excellence, for he did no damage to any British gun, he killed but two horses in the field, and he wounded but five of our men altogether. And yet he got his range so quickly and well, and he was so persistent and so wholly invisible, that our men set their teeth in grim determination to destroy him. They had for a target nothing but the thin smoke which rose over his gun, but into that little floating cloud they planted shot and shell, until at the end of the day they had expended two hundred and ten rounds, if I remember the extraordinary figure correctly. All the other Boer guns were silenced before this one was, and at twenty minutes to ten

this was disabled, and every gun of the enemy was speechless.

Presently, at about half-past seven, our men began creeping closer and closer to the foe hidden among the stones above our heads. At 7.45 the Boer riflemen discharged a fiendish series of sharp volleys at us, assisted by their batteries. Our field batteries took note of the position of these guns, and bent a cross-fire upon them, dropping two, three, and even four shells at a time upon the Boer artillery. It was after eight o'clock when our infantry made another of those gallant rushes into a rain of lead which this war has called for with a frequency, and with a quality of danger, that I fancy no previous conflict has so often evoked.

The bulk of the enemy held a tall, rocky kopje, and our plan was to rush it, as we had rushed several such strongholds at Belmont. The troops of the Ninth Brigade led the way, and the Naval Brigade were in the very front. The Guards Brigade, lustrous with honour after the manner in which they had borne the brunt of the last fight, were now in the rear, drawn up in wide formation on the level veldt, and advancing slowly to support the attacking force.

The naval men marched boldly to the foot of