opening and closing.
'Once more into the breach, dear friends,' whispered Saul, but Sean did
not answer because he was wrestling with his fear.
Even in the cold of dawn his hands were damp. He wiped them on the
thighs of his breeches and slid his rifle from the scabbard.
'What about the Maxims?' Saul asked.
'No time to set them up.' Sean knew his voice was hoarse and he
cleared his throat before he went on. 'We won't need them, it's six to
one.
He looked along the silent line of his men. A dark line against the
grass that was paling in the dawn. He could see that each of his
troopers leaned forward in the saddle with his rifle held across his
lap. The tension was a tangible thing in the half darkness even the
horses were infected, they moved beneath their riders, shifting their
bodies, nodding with impatience.
Please God, let none of them whicker now.
And he peered ahead into the darkness. Waiting with his own fear and
the fear of his men so strong that the Boers must surely smell it.
A patch of greater darkness in the dawn, ahead and slightly to the left
of centre. Sean watched it for a few seconds and saw it move, slowly,
like the moonlit shadow of a tree on the open veld.
'Are you sure they're Boers?' Saul whispered, and the doubt startled
Sean. While he hesitated the shadow spread towards them and now he
could hear the hooves.
Are they Boers? Desperately he searched for some sign that would allow
him to loose his charge. Are they Boers? But there was no sign, only
the dark advance and the small sounds of it, the click and creak in the
dawn.
They were close now, less than a hundred yards, although it was
impossible to tell with certainty for the dark, moving mass seemed to
float towards them.
'Sean . . . ' Saul's whisper was cut off by the shrill nervous whinny
of his horse. The sound was so unexpected that Sean heard the man
beside him gasp. Almost immediately came the sign for which Sean
waited.
'Wie's duar? ' The challenge from ahead was in the guttural of the
Taal.
'Charge!' yelled Sean and hit his horse with his heels.
Instantly the whole of his line jumped forward to hurl itself upon the
Boers.
Forward in the pounding hooves, forward in the shouting, in the
continuous crackle of rifle, fire that sparkled along the line with his
fear left behind him, Sean spurred at them. Steadying the butt of his
rifle under his right armpit, firing blind, blending his voice with the
yelling of six hundred others, leading slightly in the centre of the
Line; he took his commando down upon the Boers.
They broke before the charge. They had to break for they could not
hope to stand against it. They swung and drove their exhausted horses
back towards the south.
