Our wagons and a huge convoy arrived on the 10th of September, and with them, in addition to Captain Wroughton and Lieutenant Pearce, came Lieut. Montgomerie, who had been shot in the leg at Retief's Nek, but had since recovered, and now rejoined for duty. On the next day all the wagons, except our proportion, went off by road to join the Brigade, and we also received orders to march, at half-past nine that night, at which hour the moon was expected to show up. It was a lovely night and the march was only a short one of about eight miles, but it took us four hours, all the same, as we had to wait occasionally to allow the lagging convoy to close up. Starting again at half-past nine in the morning we marched until mid-day, when we halted for an hour and a half, and eventually reached camp at Zamenskornst about three p.m. after a tramp of 17 miles. All the troops which had marched to the relief of Ladybrand were camped on the opposite side of the spruit, including our other half battalion, who, of course, came and laughed at us for having missed all the hard marching they had had into Ladybrand. There was a wide, sandy spruit between the two camps, and the ox convoy started at early dawn, about three o'clock, to cross this: after them went our mule wagons and the battery and all the details, telegraph people and so on, so that the battalion, which furnished the rear guard, did not have to move until half-past seven. The mounted troops comprised men of the Mounted Infantry of several Corps--Brabant's Horse, Rimington's Scouts, Kitchener's Horse--and there were also representatives of many other regiments, both regular and irregular, as General Hunter and his staff accompanied us, with interpreters and servants, guides, escort and men in charge of their baggage wagons. At the entrance to camp at Allendale, about 12 miles away, there was another sandy drift, which tried the bullocks very much: two paths had been made, but of course it is unnecessary to state that whenever the drivers _could_ manage to cross their tracks and create a block or a collision, they invariably did so to the great delight of the baggage master, for whom, sometimes, the English language was not sufficiently copious, and who had to fall back on Hindustani. However after much delay the last wagon was got across, and the rear guard passed on into camp, which was not far off. We all turned in early, as at midnight we were to start again: it appears that the enemy were among the hills, which formed an excellent position at Doornberg, lying in the centre of a triangle formed by the three towns of Winburg, Ventersburg and Senekal, and was easily accessible from either, both from our point of view and from that of the enemy. Winburg was occupied by our troops, but the other two towns had not been consistently held throughout the campaign, and the enemy were able, therefore, to use these towns to some extent as bases.