_June 28._--It was icy cold at 4 A.M., and one's fingers could hardly cope with straps and links. I had done one horse, when welcome orders came that my waggon was not wanted. So I sat by the cook's fire and cooked in the lid of my mess-tin a slice of meat I had hastily hacked from an ox's carcase at our last camp. Also some Maggi soup. About sunrise the limbers returned, having left the guns and gunners in position on a hill somewhere, where they shot at any Boers they saw, and were sniped at themselves. A slack day for the rest of us, and I had a good sleep. Of course we are all delighted that the days of waiting are over, and that we have had fighting and been of use. Everything has gone well, and without a single hitch, and we were congratulated by the Brigadier. As for De Wet, the plucky Boer who is fighting down here, now that his cause is hopeless, we have sworn to get him to London and give him a dinner and a testimonial for giving us the chance of a fight.
Of course the whole affair was trivial enough, and I don't suppose will ever figure in the papers, though it was interesting enough to us. I should be sorry to have to describe what went on as a whole. I just wrote what was under my eye during halts, and to grasp the plan of the thing, when distances are so great and the enemy so invisible, is impossible. But, as far as I could see, it was pretty well managed. We had no casualties yesterday, chiefly owing to shells not bursting. The Infantry and Yeomanry had some killed and wounded, but I don't know the numbers. Some of the Boer practice was excellent. Once we watched them shell some Infantry on a kopje, every shell falling clean and true on the top and reverse edge of it. The Infantry had to quit. But on the whole I was at a loss to understand their artillery tactics, which seemed desultory and irresolute. They would get our range or that of the convoy and then cease firing, never concentrating their fire on a definite point. Their ammunition too was evidently of an inferior quality. I saw no shrapnel fired. It is all very novel, laborious, exciting, hungry work, and perhaps the strangest sensation of all is one's passive ignorance of all that is happening beyond one's own narrow sphere of duty. An odd discovery is that one has so much leisure, as a driver, when in action. There is plenty of time to write one's diary when waiting with the teams. One pleasant thing is the change felt in the relaxation of the hard-and-fast regulations of a standing camp. Anything savouring of show or ceremonial, all needless _minutiæ_ of routine, disappear naturally. It is business now, and everything is judged by the standard of common-sense.