Luckily for us, their camp proved slow to hear, else the main body of Boers would have rushed for the donga and regularly trapped the crowd. As it was our men had reached the donga before the laager had awakened to the situation. Cayley and Bearne were kindly treated but marched about unmercifully, eventually reaching the main Boer laager at Commando Nek, where a short time previously the Lincolns and Scots Greys had come to such terrible grief. There the unhappy pair were released to struggle twenty miles into Pretoria as best they might. Shortly after the adventurous descent on the Crocodile River fastnesses, which I have already described, a second and larger patrol, with Captain Clifford again in command, set forth to avenge the disasters of the first. As I have a particular regard for my personal safety, and believing the neighbourhood accursed, I found it convenient to be otherwise occupied at the moment when patrol No. 2 started. And subsequent events proved me wiser than my generation. Not being present at what happened, I cannot, of course, tell exactly how it came about. Nor could I piece the twenty different accounts given me into a satisfactory whole, for the very good reason that no two of the stories afterwards told me would fit in. However, it would appear that it happened somewhat thus. The party started out at daybreak, and reached the scene of the previous disaster in good time in the morning. Needless to say, the Boers were on the look-out this time, and so soon as the patrol hove in sight made their dispositions. With a wariness born of experience there was no venturing into the valley. The party spread over the ridge along which the Boers had followed them on the first occasion, and advanced in skirmishing order with scouts in front smelling out every nook and cranny. And so they came, as they say in racing parlance, right along the ridge until close up to the farmhouse. All the time the Boers in force were happily contemplating these operations from the opposite ridge, which they had selected as being the one not likely to be scouted. As the ridge ran into the hill behind the farmhouse it became necessary, if any act of retribution was to be performed on the farmer, to diverge from that line of advance and make for the farmhouse. This was done, and of course brought the patrol into closer order. At the farmhouse one of its occupants handed a note to Captain Clifford. It was from the farmer, and ran, ‘Am going down the road to kill a pig for a neighbour. Will be back in a few minutes.’ And then the band began to play. From the hill in front and the ridge on the right the Mausers spoke out their unwelcome messages in a continuous stream, till it seemed as if the blue sky above must crack for the noise. Round whipped the patrol and in went the spurs, Captain Clifford leading his men down the valley