"Northamptons! _'shon_! Fours left, by the left--quick--_march_!" and the tramp of feet nears the spot where the General stands alone. Down the whole battalion you hear the order run, "Company! eyes _left_!" and hundreds of eyes are turned on the General, until the (to him) welcome "Eyes _front_!" relieves him from so particular a scrutiny. Is it not a paragon of what he has to endure from the world? XVI A SURPRISE ON THE MARCH Strangely enough, I had just written the last chapter, describing the profound peace of our environments, when from my tent near the farmhouse I saw one after another of the headquarters staff mount their horses and gallop westwards up the hill after Lord Methuen, who was easily first. One learns to read signs quickly in a military camp, and it did not require much intuition to understand that something was, in the phrase of the orderly at the vacant headquarters, "bloomin' well hup." My own horse was ready in five minutes, and when I reached the top of the hill I found the cavalry horse lines vacant. The site of the Zwaartzkopjesfontein camp turns an abrupt face eastwards, but on the westward side the plateau slopes almost imperceptibly to the plain, which is, in its immediate neighbourhood, thickly sown with kopjes. Down this slope the cavalry were galloping, about two miles in advance of me, in squadron formation, towards a small kopje on which we had a picket. Realising that nothing could happen immediately, I followed them at a foot-pace, and came up with them at the foot of the hill where they had dismounted. Scouts were sent out westwards among the low bush with which these slopes are clothed, and from the top of the hill one could see them scattering and spreading over ten miles of country; but no sound broke the silence of the hills. Summer was back again to-day; our sea-plain was calm, shimmering in the haze; and only the buzz of an insect disturbed the peace of the little group on the brown hill.