_Sunday, 27th May._--Up at daybreak and awfully cold. We marched off to Newcastle, the fine Lancashire Fusiliers, my father's old regiment, doing rearguard just behind our guns. Met Archie Shee of the 19th Hussars who recognised me from old _Britannia_ days, where he and I were together. He told me that my cousin Ernest St. Quintin of the 19th had gone home with enteric after the Ladysmith siege. On getting to the top of the hills overlooking Newcastle we were much struck with the view and the prettiness of the town which the Boers had hardly wrecked at all--quite the best I have seen in Natal from a distance. We went gaily down the hill and over a footbridge into camp where we found all three Divisions together, barring a Brigade pushed on with some 5" and 12-pounders to Ingogo. We hear that Lord Roberts is across the Vaal, and that Hunter is pushing up through the Orange Free State parallel with us, while the enemy are holding Majuba, Laing's Nek and tunnel, and Pougwana Hill to the east of the Nek, with 10,000 men. _Monday, 28th May._--Moved off with the 5th Division under General Hildyard towards Utrecht. After an eight-mile march we crossed the bridge over Buffalo River and Drift unopposed by Boers, and entered the Transvaal at last. We were the first of the Natal force to do so, so I record it proudly. At 9 p.m.--a very cold night--orders came for an advance on Utrecht, my guns and some Infantry under Major Lousada being left to hold the bridge and drift here. I visited all the salient points of defence and outposts from Buffalo River to Wakkerstroom Road and carefully selected my gun positions, then brought the guns, each with an ammunition wagon, up the ridge, a steep pull up, and placed them one commanding the Utrecht Road and one Wakkerstroom Road--unluckily one mile apart, which could not be helped. I put my chief petty officer, Munro, in command of the left gun and took the right one myself, riding between the two to give general directions when necessary. At night as no Boers appeared we withdrew the guns and wagons behind the ridge. _Wednesday, 30th May._--Drew the guns out of laager at sunrise and again got into position and arranged details of defence with Major Lousada so far as my own work was concerned. All was quiet however to-day, and we saw no Boers nearer than Pougwana. And so it went on for the next few days, during which the Landrost of Utrecht, after twenty-four hours' armistice, delivered up the town to General Hildyard, saying that he had done the same in 1881 to a British force which had never occupied it after all. So history repeats itself.