Our column moved out at 9 a.m. Contact with the enemy was very soon found thereafter. At 11 a.m. our artillery opened fire on the enemy positions, while meantime our fighting line had formed and advanced slowly until about 400 to 800 yards off the enemy’s entrenched and prepared positions in the bottle-neck formed by the Soko-Nassai River at its junction with the Defu River. Here our forces were held, and the battle raged bitterly for some hours. Some of the enemy machine-guns were faultlessly handled, and inflicted heavy casualties. The fight was across a dead-level open grass space, terminating in bush at either fighting line. It was in the bush, on the enemy’s side, that their death-dealing machine-guns were concealed, and throughout the day our artillery failed to search them out. I saw those machine-gun emplacements later—there were two outstanding ones—and one proved to be on a raised platform, eight feet above ground, and skilfully concealed amongst the trees; the other was in a dug-out pit, with a fire-directing observation post in a tall tree standing just behind it. Where each gun had stood lay a huge stack of empty cartridge-cases, telling clearly that their gunners had found a big target. But where the raised gun had been, blood in all directions, and torn garments, and dead natives, told that not without payment had they held their post. But I digress. The battle raged unceasingly until dusk, with all its grime, and thirst, and heart-aching bloodshed. With darkness the firing ceased, as if by mutual consent, and immediately we commenced to strengthen our hastily dug trenches—dug during the action with bayonets, knives, hands—anything. And there they laboured, those grim, dirt- and blood-bespattered men of the firing lines while movement became general on all occupations. Ambulances and doctors were being sought on all sides, while many men passed along looking for water, in desperate need of quenching their thirst. In that bush forest, after dark, wandering parties, unfamiliar with the encampment as it lay after battle, seemed to be looking for every regiment, and water-cart, and doctor in creation. Late into the night the labours of readjustment and of organisation went on, while in the trenches dog-tired men, one by one, dropped off to sleep. About midnight peace settled over the camp, and the remainder of the night passed without further disturbance. At dawn, patrols went out and found the enemy had evacuated the entire front of prepared entrenchments, and had retired rapidly south under cover of the bush and the darkness. At the same time, news came in that General Van Deventer’s mounted troops had occupied Kahe Station, and the two commanding kopjes to the south. So, for the time being, the storm of arms was over, and the enemy had staved off defeat by evading a prolonged battle. [Sidenote: GERMANS USE GUNS FROM BATTLESHIP]