On the 21st this party was moved on to Katbosh Camp, a mile or so beyond Honing Spruit, where were stationed two companies of the Shropshires and some mounted Canadians under the command of Colonel Evans. The officers of the composite force were: Colonel Bullock, of the Devonshires, commanding; Major Stock, of the Wiltshire Regiment; Major Carleton, Royal Lancasters; Captains Elmslie and Freeth, of the Lancashire Fusiliers; Lieutenants Bryant, Temple, Radice, Smith, Mackenzie, and Gray, of the Gloucestershire Regiment; Jones, of the Connaught Rangers; Best, of the Inniskilling Fusiliers; Prior, Engineer Militia; Colson, of the 5th Fusiliers; and Wood-Martin, of the Suffolk Regiment. These, all of them, had had sufficiently horrible experiences, both during the hardly fought engagements in which they had been taken prisoners, and in the period of incarceration at the Model School, and vowed never again to be caught alive in the trap of the Dutchmen. They then hardly realised how near that trap they were. [Illustration: LINES TORN UP BY DE WET NEAR KROONSTAD. (Photo by D. Barnett.)] The night was unusually cold, and travelling in coal trucks was scarcely an inspiriting beginning. In the gloom of early dawn the train reached Honing Spruit Station. Some of the officers alighted and exercised themselves to restore circulation--they were numb and weary--and in doing so espied, in the east, the dark outlines of mounted figures approaching. They promptly gave the alarm. Colonel Bullock proceeded in all haste to get the men out of the trucks, and speedily they were formed up round the station. An effort was then made with such picks and shovels as were at hand to dig trenches. But these were a mere apology for shelter. They made, however, according to an officer who scraped his little burrow for himself, a "moral" support. Of other support, it must be owned, they had little. A few officers were provided with Mausers, carbines, and bandoliers of ammunition, but the force for the most part were saddled with Martini-Henry rifles and black powder ammunition--rifles discarded by the Boers, and left by them in the arsenal at Pretoria. These venerable weapons were sighted at 1200 yards--the ordinary range of Lee-Mitford or Mauser may be taken at 1500 to 2000 yards--and were served out of necessity, owing to the insufficiency of ammunition for Mauser rifles. Thus handicapped at the outset in the way of weapons of defence, ragged and tattered, some in boots that were dropping to pieces, some partly in uniform, partly in mufti, garbed exactly as they had been in the prison, they found themselves once again in presence of the enemy. Colonel Bullock, stouthearted and truculent as ever, at once wired for help to Kroonstad, and with the line cut on both sides of him, and the Boers blowing up culverts as they came along, prepared to make a stand against the advancing foe. Meanwhile bang! bang! went a series of