This armoured train, which usually lived at Kroonstad, but occasionally rushed up and down the line, was a queer looking object; the engine was in the middle, sheathed all over in boiler plating; at one end was a box car, also covered in plating, with a Maxim gun in it and a crew of men to work it; there were loopholes for the machine gun and for rifle fire. There was another car behind the engine, upon which were mounted two Naval quick-firing 12-prs., firing a huge brass cartridge. This weird-looking train puffed away rapidly, as Captain Nanton was anxious to try and save some of the wagons, if possible, from the wrecked train, and the platelayers from down the line, having come in on their trolley, went off also. At early dawn, Captain Pine-Coffin with all his available Mounted Infantry went out, and sent in reports later to say that he was following on the tracks of about twenty mounted Boers, who had ridden from the train in the direction of Ventersburg town, which Colonel White's force had left only a couple of days before. Pine-Coffin followed up these tracks until they separated, and led off in many different directions, when, further pursuit being hopeless, and the enemy having at least six hours start, he returned to camp. Later in the day, Captain Nanton returned with his armoured train, dragging one truck full of half-burned rubbish, and the engine of the defunct train, which was covered with a nice assortment of bullet holes, but was unharmed, though technically "dead," as the fires were out. The stories of the fireman and the guard were correct, the line having been blown up in two places, and practically the whole train destroyed by fire, only one wagon being saved: the burning wagons had been dragged into a convenient siding and the line repaired, so that the trains which had accumulated at Ventersburg Road were enabled to go off in turn, but only up till dusk, as, after this, it was not considered advisable to run trains during the dark hours of the night. Some details of our regiment and some of the Camerons (nearly a company), turned up on the 2nd of September and were attached to us, and next day our trains arrived, and, after shipping off the battery, the section of the R.E., the hospital wagons and the Derbyshire men, we followed in the last train. The whole of the baggage wagons and the ox wagons proceeded by road to Bloemfontein, under charge of Captain Wroughton and Lieut. Pearce. Our train reached Smaldeal a little after six o'clock in the evening: there we had to remain all night, but there was plenty of coal about, so we made ourselves comfortable, sleeping by the side of the train. General Allen was at Smaldeal with a small garrison at the station, which is the junction with the line running to Winburg.