with the foreign words.
'I'll be damned if you are, sir.' Leaning heavily on the shoulder of a
skinny little dark-haired man who supported him, the officer reached
forward and shook a finger in Jan Paulus's face. 'There will be no
surrender on this hill. Kindly remove your rabble from my trench!
'Rabble, is it!' roared Jan Paulus. Around them the Boers and the
British had ceased all activity and were watching with interest.
Jan Paulus turned to the nearest burghers: Vat hulle weg! Take them
away! ' His gesture that accompanied the order was unmistakable.
'We'll have none of that, sir! ' Acheson glared at him before issuing
his own order. 'You men, come back and re-form on the Devonshires.
Hurry it up, now. Come along. Come along.'
'Hey!' Jan Paulus held up his hand. 'These are my .
He groped for the word. 'My captures.
'Sir.' Acheson released his grip on Saul's shoulder, drew himself up
to his full height and glared up into Jan Paulus's face.
'I will give you five minutes to vacate this trench-otherwise you will
become my prisoner. Good day to you. ' And he hobbled away through
the grass. Jan Paulus stared in disbelief when fifty paces away
Acheson turned, folded his arms across his chest, and waited grimly for
the expiry of the five minutes.
About him he had gathered a handful of battle-stained soldiers and it
was clearly his intention to implement his duty with this pitiful
little band. Jan Paulus wanted to laugh with frustration the skinny
old goat. But he realized with dismay that most of his prisoners were
filtering away and hurrying to join Acheson.
He must do something but what? The whole position was deteriorating
into a farce.
'Stop them! ' he shouted at his burghers. 'Hold those men they went
hands-up. They cannot change their minds now. ' Then abruptly the
whole position altered. Over the skyline behind Acheson and his tiny
party poured a solid phalanx of fresh khaki-clad figures. The dime
battalions of reinforcements sent up from the foot of the mountain by
Sir Charles Wan-en had at last arrived. Acheson glanced over his
shoulder and saw them swarming forward. The brown parchment of his
face tore laterally in a wide and wicked grin.
'Fix bayonets!' he shrieked, and drew his sword. 'Buglers sound the
charge. Charge, men! Charge!
Hopping and stumbling like a stork with a broken leg, he led them.
Behind him, the glittering crest of a wave, a line of bayonets raced
down on the trench. Jan Paulus's burghers hated naked steel.
There were five hundred of them against two hundred.
They broke and blew away like smoke on a high wind.
Their prisoners ran with them.
Jan Paulus reached the crest and dropped behind a boulder that already
sheltered three men.
'Stop them! Here they come!' he panted.
While the British wave slowed and expended itself against the reef of
hidden Mousers, while they fell back with the shrapnel scourging them
once more-Jan Paulus knew that he would not stand in the British trench
