Late at night on Tuesday, August 4th, we arrived at Nakob, and in the morning the police told us that war had already been declared between Germany and France, and that there had been heavy fighting on the Belgian border. This news was from the German police over the border, for we ourselves brought the latest news from our own distant news centre. Speculation was rife as to whether England would be drawn in or not, and the three troopers at our lonely little post, relying for news on a possible enemy over the border, were anxious and uneasy at what I was able to tell them. However, war or no war, they had their routine duty to do, and on the morning of August 6th, Troopers Hall and Green left for Upington with a prisoner, leaving young Human, a young Dutch trooper from Kakamas, and quite a boy, in sole charge of the lonely post. For they had no other means of dealing with prisoners--no lock-up but their own living and sleeping room, and as one man alone could not guard a prisoner night and day over the long journey to headquarters, the major portion of the “garrison” had to escort him. Meanwhile, having found my gang of “boys” still in existence, I set them to work in earnest, for I was too near German territory to feel comfortable, and I this time pitched my camp at the base of the escarpment about a mile only from the police post, and in sight of it. Finding it impossible to properly cope with the problem of dragging sufficient water to the pipe to “wash” the blue ground there, I adopted the plan of bringing the latter down to the level; but on the 8th the young trooper rode up to my camp to show me a “dispatch” which a galloper had brought out the forty-odd miles from Zwartmodder. It was to warn the police that war with Germany was imminent, and that they must be on their guard against “covert acts” against their patrols. Poor boy, he spoke English well, but scarcely understood the official language of the document; as for the patrols--well, he was absolutely alone! His nearest mate was at Zwartmodder, over forty-odd miles of bad road away, and from whence the message had been brought.