Lieutenants Bevan and Hall of the Northumberland Fusiliers were also wounded. An armoured train came to the rescue and attracted the Boer fire, pouring from two Maxims a withering storm of bullets on the enemy and inflicting heavy loss. The Dutchmen were discovered to be in great force all around, and as they blocked the road to Kimberley, the promise of more spirited engagements was in the air. Already it was ascertained that a number of culverts on the railway line had been destroyed by the hostile troops, and rumours of Boer invasion were continually being brought in. The next day, amid universal regret, the two gallant officers who had lost their lives in leading their men against the powerful enemy, were buried. Lieutenant Brook (9th Lancers) on the day of the reconnaissance had a narrow escape, and experiences more exciting than pleasurable. Early in the morning he had gone on ahead of the column for the purpose of making a route sketch. This done, he sent it back by his orderly, and while continuing his investigations found himself confronted with the enemy. A shower of bullets greeted him. His horse was shot and he was brought to the ground. It was neck or nothing now, and he ran for dear life pursued by a horde of mounted Boers. Fortunately he came to a wire fence, vaulted it, and was for a moment safe. The enemy's ponies could not follow. But the Boers sent shots after his retreating form, shots which luckily missed him, and he was enabled to reach two troops of the 9th Lancers which galloped up to the rescue. On the 12th Lord Methuen arrived, and there was general satisfaction among the troops. They were now in fine fighting condition, and, having had one taste of battle, were longing to advance and get in touch with the enemy. But the advance of Lord Methuen's column was no simple affair. It must be remembered that from Cape Town to the base, De Aar, is 500 miles, to Belmont 591, to Kimberley 647, and to Mafeking 870 miles, and the railway from place to place needed continual guarding, and especially the bridges in localities where the disaffected portion of the Dutch community resided. Lord Methuen's route, too, lay across a species of dusty Sahara, over boulder-strewn plains with scarcely a tree to offer shade, though dotted about now and then with some ancient kopjes to vary the monotony of the South African scene. On these kopjes it was as likely as not that Boer sharpshooters might already be hidden, for the affluent Dutchmen forced their poorer countrymen to maintain eyrie-like positions--padded with blankets and hedged in with boulders--in readiness for the approach of an army, while they themselves arrived fresh, spick and span, only on the rumour of battle.