Late that evening I received orders to hold myself in readiness at 4.30 A.M. for Kranz Kraal, whither we marched in company with the 14th Brigade, our object being to protect a bridge about eight miles distant on the main road to Bloemfontein, which the Boers intended to destroy. We were only just in time to prevent them carrying out their object, by getting there before them, with only a couple of casualties among the Australian contingent. We spent the night at the bridge, returning the next day to Spytfontein. While at the latter place we were fortunate in securing a few more Government remounts to replace several unfit horses. I may mention that at Spytfontein we were in easy sight of the Boer outposts, being only eight miles distant from Brandfort. A long flat plain separated the Boer boundary from our own, and their scouts were distinctly visible to us every morning. Nothing eventful occurred during the next few days, but on the 30th we received our baptism of fire as far as we are personally concerned. [Illustration] ----- Footnote 4: The Suffolk Company M.I., numbering 120, joined later.—ED. ----- CHAPTER VIII _THE BAPTISM OF FIRE—LUMSDEN’S HORSE AT OSPRUIT (HOUTNEK)_ How often ignorant critics have sneered at that phrase ‘the baptism of fire,’ which expresses finely, with literary completeness and force, a truth of which men who have never been in the front line of battle can know nothing! However much the phrase may have been degraded by melodramatic application, it is a gem in its clearness of thought and perfection of finish. The soldier’s first fight is a plunge from which he emerges a new being. Whether the change may be for better or worse depends probably on temperament and previous associations. The fire of battle does not purify a sinner or sear the soul of a saint, but neither is quite the same after as he was before passing through it. He has seen things which, in some subtle way, unfelt, perhaps, and certainly unacknowledged, will influence the remaining years of his life. It is not only because he has looked death in the face—that is a common enough experience elsewhere and leaves no perceptible trace—but he has stood where dear comrades fell beside him in the midst of scenes that at other times would be heartrending, and, as if in a state of complete detachment from himself, he has passed callous through it all. The braver a man is, the more surely some consciousness of that strange state clings to him. To call it selfish indifference or the numbness of fear, as some insolent ignoramus might, would be to falsify the history of war. Selfish men and cowards do not walk with eyes open into the very jaws of death to help a wounded comrade, nor would dazed brains be capable of the swift thought that characterises soldiers in the direst danger. Yet men who at such times have done deeds worthy of the Cross