_T._ "I don't exactly know, sir; I kind of found myself galloping for all I was worth, and the bullets just 'umming that thick and awful, that I kept on asking myself the whole way home 'ow it was I managed to escape!" _B._ "You may go. Stop! where's your rifle?" _T._ (_for the first time realising that he had not got a rifle_). "I must have dropped it, sir, in the scrimmage--it was awful 'ot, sir!" _B._ (_brutally_). "Off you go; you ought to be ashamed to talk to honest men. (_Then turning to the brigade-major._) Look here, Baker, though I don't believe the man's story _in toto_, or would believe any man who in panic had thrown his rifle away, yet something has happened, and either our men on the left have fallen in with the party of Boers who crossed our trail this morning, or we have let slip the whole 'bag of tricks,' and De Wet is through us. Just you take another squadron of the Mount Nelsons and see what has happened on the left. You can also take the pom-pom. Unless the enemy are in strength don't stay out there long, as I shall probably move on before you are back. Anyway I shall leave a signal-station on the hill above us!" _Brigade-Major._ "Very good, sir." _B._ "Wait a moment. As the rain-storm has dished my original plans, I shall probably, as soon as I hear from Fauresmith, send half my force direct to the Kalabas bridge, and take the rest to support the Mount Nelson squadrons. But I can make no definite statement until I have some idea of De Wet's force. Gad! I wish I knew where Plumer might be at this moment, or whether there is any one behind De Wet. Without information or maps, this is an uphill game!"...