[Illustration: THE AUTHOR, AND A BASUTO PONY WHICH ASSISTED IN THE FIGHT
AT SANNASPOST]
Until the officer advised his men to retreat and he himself fell from his
horse the main body of the British troops was ignorant of the presence of
the Boers, but the report of the rifle was a summons to battle and
instantly the field was filled with myriads of stirring scenes. The lazy
transport-train suddenly became a thing of rapid motion; the huge body of
troops was quickly broken into many parts; horses that had been idling
along the road plunged forward as if projected by catapults. Officers with
swords flashing in the sunlight appeared leading their men into different
positions, cannon were hurriedly drawn upon commanding elevations, and Red
Cross waggons scattered to places of safety. The peaceful transport-train
had suddenly been transformed into a formidable engine of war by the
report of a rifle, and the contest for a sentiment and a bit of ground was
opened by shrieking cannon-shell and the piercing cry of rifle-ball.
Down at the foot of the slope, where the drift crossed the spruit, Boers
were dragging cannon into position, and in among the waggons which had
become congested in the road, burghers and soldiers were engaging in
fierce hand-to-hand encounters. A stocky Briton wrestled with a youthful
Boer, and in the struggle both fell to the ground; near by a cavalryman
was firing his revolver at a Boer armed with a rifle, and a hundred paces
away a burgher was fighting with a British officer for the possession of a
sword.
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