It looked uncommonly as if the unfortunate rearguard would have to bivouac in that miserable marsh. As everybody was pouring with perspiration from their endeavours with the waggons, and as it was beginning to freeze, while there was no chance of getting at great-coats, blankets, or food unless the waggons came out, out they jolly well had to come--and came. It was ten o'clock before the men got anything to eat, and 11.30 p.m. before our arrangements for the night were completed. Our invaluable French 'chef' had kept some hot soup for the rearguard, and seldom was soup more appreciated than by those famished and frozen warriors. We now heard that we were going south, and going south by train, and that at all events was something to look forward to. At least it was a change--something to look forward to with anticipation; and certainly it is something to look back upon with a certain amount of amusement, but at the time that railway journey was certainly the reverse of comfortable. We could not get off as early as we expected to on the 29th. The first train started all right, but owing to the amount of work to be done in getting kit over a small drift that lay between our bivouac of the night before and the station, the second train did not follow it till 3.30 p.m. After this the difficulty of dispatch increased with each succeeding train, until when it came to entraining reluctant horses and still more reluctant mules practically in the dark, for there was no other light but the dim glimmer of two candle-lamps, the task became herculean, and required an infinity of patience and tact. The General and his staff having gone by the first excursion, the task of bringing along the remainder of the column devolved on Colonel Hicks, with Captain Fetherstonhaugh as his staff officer. They did not complete the entraining until the early hours of the 30th, and then only to find the line blown up in front of them. The fact that no disaster occurred here was owing to Colonel Hicks' determination not to try to get through that night, as he clearly foresaw what actually took place, and that there was nothing to prevent the enemy blowing up the line. It is necessary now to turn our attention to the second train, which conveyed most of the regiment, under command of Major Bird. Some forty men with their arms and accoutrements were told off to each open truck, necessitating the tightest packing, which, however, had a beneficial effect in so far as it took off the worst part of the constant succession of jerks and jolts which the journey consisted of. But everybody was full of fun, and the men as merry as crickets at the change from the long days of uninteresting 'foot-slogging' and the prospect of a brush with the elusive De Wet. The officers--about twenty in number--travelled in the guard's van, on the floor of which they made themselves as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. [Illustration: Fourth Class on the Z.A.S.M.]