Note Back to Main Text — Chapter V

Wednesday, 28th February.—A red-letter day. Before daylight I set my men to work to bale out the pont and to get my second gun across the river with 100 rounds of ammunition, and also off-loaded and got over a spare wagon and 250 rounds more. All this was a terrible hard job; two empty military wagons trying to get across the drift at this spot were carried away before my eyes and only picked up a quarter of a mile down stream. At 11 a.m. I was able at last to march on to join General Coke's Brigade in Colenso, and to get my guns into position. I was very exhausted and was feeling rather ill, but I was able to dine with the General under a tarpaulin and had much talk over old times in the Mauritius in 1898. It was a very wet evening, and my men who were bivouacking with no tents had a bad time of it. The sudden cessation of firing most of the day seemed to foreshadow some change at the front, and we found afterwards to our joy that a detachment of the Imperial Light Horse under Lord Dundonald had ridden into Ladysmith at 6 p.m. unmolested by the Boers who were reported to be in full retreat.[3]