Now, we thought, at last we shall have a few days' peace in the comfortable tents of the Rest Camp, and we all made plans how we were to spend our days; many of the men were allowed passes that very afternoon to go into the town, and it was as well they went when they had the chance, as that night we were off again!
At half-past seven that evening, I received orders for our half battalion, the battery and the hospital wagons to move as soon as possible to the Waterworks, about 22 miles. Nothing was said about transport, so I had to race off and find General Kelly-Kenny, who told me to apply to Colonel Long (at the other end of the town) for wagons. The General also said that it was possible the Waterworks might be attacked at dawn, and our assistance might be required, so that the sooner we got there the better. The men of the Camerons were to go with us, but not the details of the Derbyshire, who were to remain.
After seeing Colonel Long and being passed on by him to the Divisional Transport officer, I managed to get authority to procure wagons from the Rest Camp; so I went off there, and asked for all they could spare and a water cart, which, after some demur as to the number of wagons, they promised to send up. About half-past ten these arrived at the Rest Camp where we were quartered, and after loading up we started; luckily, there were plenty of wagons, so we were able to relieve the men of the blankets they carried on their backs, and also to load the wagons lightly--the mules had a long march before them and had already done a full day's work.
There was a good moon, so we trekked along steadily until three o'clock in the morning; when the moon disappeared, and we halted where we were, posted pickets and got out our blankets, and had a couple of hours' sleep. Up again at dawn, we loaded our wagons with the blankets and moved off by half-past five; we reached a suitable spot near Bushman's Kop about eight o'clock, when we halted a couple of hours for breakfast, but were off again by ten o'clock, eventually reaching the Waterworks, in very good style, after a long tramp of 22 miles, at half-past one in the afternoon.
The next day's march was a short one of merely 8 miles to a pan, filled with very dirty water, which was all we had. Things looked lively that night, as the pickets brought in a Boer prisoner, who turned out to be one of our own wagon drivers; he had gone out of the lines to a farm, without permission, and probably to give information. Naturally he protested his innocence, but he was put in charge of a sentry, and warned that on the first bullet being fired into camp by the enemy, he would be shot dead by the sentry; luckily for him, the night was a peaceful one, although our camp was invaded--not however by the enemy. Soon after midnight we heard a sentry calling out repeatedly in a mild sort of way "Guard, turn out!", and then we saw that he was one of the picket sentries, who had found himself suddenly overwhelmed by an advancing mass of Kaffirs, jabbering, chattering, and understanding no known language, but steadily moving on with their bundles.