Hurried Preparations for War--The Reserves Mobilised--Enthusiasm of the British Public--Strength of the Forces in Natal and Cape Colony--Strength of the Enemy--The Attack Delayed--Disposition of the Boer Forces--Positions of the British at Dundee and Ladysmith--Battle of Dundee--Symons wounded--Storming of Talana Hill--The Treacherous White Flag--Yule's March--Battle of Elandslaagte--British and Boer Losses--"Remember Majuba!"--Action at Rietfontein--The Boer Tactics--White decides to hold Ladysmith. [Sidenote: Hurried preparations for war.] The Transvaal ultimatum for the moment united all Englishmen. No one was found to suggest the idea of surrender to such monstrous and treasonable demands. The calling out of the reserves began amidst an excitement which has never been paralleled in our day. Time, unfortunately, was required to get the troop-ships ready, for the Admiralty had not been given a fair chance. Time was also required for the collection of transport, without which no army can move. Horses, mules, tinned meat and food of all kinds, had to be purchased hurriedly in every direction. The sense of public anxiety was augmented by the knowledge that the army sent out could not be in South Africa, ready for work, within six weeks from the date when mobilisation began. And very much might happen in that time. [Illustration: ARMOURED TRAIN FIRED UPON BY THE BOERS. This train was attacked by the Boers near Spyfontein, October 15. An attack on a similar train three days earlier, at Kraaipan, near Mafeking, was the first overt act of war.] [Sidenote: The Reserves mobilised.] Yet there was outward calm. The reservists answered the call like Englishmen; like men, that is to say, who know a painful duty lies before them and will do it. Scarcely one was missing when the time given them to rejoin had elapsed. Deserters, who had shipped for America, of their own free will came back to fight the Boers. Men rose from beds of sickness that they might serve with the old colours and not betray the confidence reposed in them. There was no exultation, no desire to fight for fighting's sake, only a calm determination to end the twenty years' purgatory of misrule in the Transvaal by coming to the aid of brother Englishmen. [Sidenote: [OCT. 1899.] [Sidenote: Enthusiasm of the British public.]