I shall never forget riding down the main street in pitch darkness--the street full of waggons (each with its sixteen oxen), blundering about, the waggon in front of one suddenly stopping, and the waggon behind coming on--cries, curses, hailings, and railings of the drivers and soldiers--everyone trying to find his camp or his waggons or his horses, and not a light to be seen. And, in spite of it all, order emerged from the chaos; brigade signals flashing, camps pitched, pickets posted to keep watch over us all night, fires lighted, stations allotted; and presently "last post" and "lights out," and in spite of the bellowing oxen, rest. XVII UNDER THE RED CROSS FLAG There was a burial party going out to Spitz Kop early the next morning, and Major Pollock and I had leave to go with it. No one was armed, the ambulance being preceded by an orderly carrying the P.M.O.'s bath-towel. When we came near to the Boer pickets we rode on with the bath-towel, while the Red Cross flag waved over the ambulance; and had come quite close before we distinguished the two figures sitting amongst the large brown boulders of the hill. They both spoke English and treated us with civility. They were both farmers from the neighbourhood of Boshof, and had a keen appetite for news of the town. We were soon deep in an examination of their weapons--one of them had a beautiful Mauser sporting rifle, hair-sighted, of which he was extremely proud; altogether we had quite a friendly chat. They gave us the best information they could as to the whereabouts of our dead and wounded, but it seemed that the Boer ambulance party had been out working all night, and had recovered nearly all the wounded as well as the bodies of two dead.