“Highly trained animals! Horses have a keen sense of hearing, and the Boer nags were taught more tricks than a circus pony from an early age. The men were—to put it mildly—fluid. As a blob of mercury is fluid when you try to touch it with a forefinger. I never saw them march anywhere. They arrived and left the battle on horseback. Alive, dead or dying. The previous week we’d been fighting our way towards Kimberley, encountering stiff resistance from their troops dug in on what they called ‘kopjes.’ A kopje is a steep, round-topped hill, and there was no end of them sticking up out of the veldt, barring our way north to Kimberley. Very simply, the Dutchmen arrived to ambush us from the southern slopes of these hills. And they were certainly well concealed! I swear I was fighting the buggers for days before I clapped eyes on one. Nothing visible but the dull lead-coloured barrels of their rifles poking through the rocks. And by the time you’d spotted that, the bullet that would hit you between the eyes was on its way. Their positions were impossible to catch sight of because they all used the new smokeless powder. No expense on armament spared with that lot. They’d arrive and abandon their horses, untethered, in the shade on the far side. The horses waited. Never known to stray. When the moment came for the Boers to do a bunk, they simply stopped shooting and whistled for their horses. Yes, whistled! And the animals came when summoned, racing up to the northern foot of the kopje to their masters, who’d scrambled down and were ready to take off.

“It was a while before I worked out what the significance of the sound was. When first heard, it was eerie. Terrifying. But the moment you understood—it became a wondrous sign of release. They were off! Scarpering! My knees gave way and I sank onto the sand in relief. Murmuring a prayer of thanks that I’d been saved to live another day and do all this over again.”

The inspector gave a tug to keep this man’s head pointing in the right direction. “So there you are, dripping wet on the riverbank, not so much as an anthill for cover, but still armed, certain death within a few paces and then—miraculously—the sound that heralds your safety rings out.” Then, military curiosity getting the better of him. “Did you take prisoners?”

“Ha! No. We collected a number of dead they hadn’t managed to haul away, but that was it. We men weren’t in the mood by that time for taking prisoners. The previous two battles had curdled our view of soldiering.”

An expectant silence and a raised eyebrow greeted this comment.