Note Back to Main Text — PART II. TREKKING.

The force marched in three parts. First, mounted men, guns, and 'A' and 'E' companies Royal Dublin Fusiliers in waggons. Then the main body of infantry, and lastly the transport with 'G' and 'H' companies Royal Dublin Fusiliers as rearguard. There was a moon for most of the way, but it only served to make the surroundings more weird. Parallel to our right ran a low range of hills, whilst on the left was the Mooi River, with a farm looming up out of the night every mile or so along the way. There was one halt of half an hour towards midnight, but the remainder of the halts were merely of the usual five minutes' duration. And hard it was to resume the weary way at the end of even those brief spells of rest. Every one was so fit that the actual marching was nothing like so trying as the difficulty of keeping awake through the long, dreary hours, and one would time after time drop asleep as one walked mechanically along, only to wake in the very act of falling. Frederickstadt was reached in the small hours of the morning, and the stream crossed to its left bank. There was then a halt of about an hour to close up the transport, and very welcome it was, for we were still an ordinary day's march from our destination. Turning to our right, we brought the Gatsrands on our left, and the word went forth that the Boers were in them, a report which seemed to be confirmed a moment later as a blaze of light suddenly appeared above their summits. 'There they are!' 'That's their signal lamp!' were the comments that greeted the glory of the morning star, whether Jupiter or Venus, on that as on many a previous and subsequent occasion. On straggled the column, many of the men completely worn out, having been reluctantly compelled to avail themselves of the permission to ride on the waggons; the remainder, with grim determination to march till they dropped, trudging patiently and silently on. At last came the welcome flush of dawn; no 'envious streaks' these, but the first message from the longed-for day which ended that abominable night. When Pochefstroom finally came in sight it was still a good five miles off, and those last five miles were as bad as any part of the march. For though in some mysterious way the coming of day had dispelled to a great extent the deadly sleepiness from which most of us suffered, our aching limbs now began to make themselves manifest, and those far-off trees never seemed to get any nearer. However, by ten o'clock the last man was in, but very nearly done. It had been a remarkable march—very remarkable seeing the conditions under which some of the troops performed it.[12] For to do from thirty-five to thirty-eight miles, most of it by night, on an empty stomach, after a hard ten hours' work under a hot sun, in sixteen hours, is a performance of which any troops may be justly proud.