"Too long a range, man. Try it again," Frazer observed coolly, as
his glance swept the empty landscape, then, turning, swept the faces
of his men.
That last sight was to his liking. He nodded to himself and
straightened in his saddle, while the orders dropped from his lips,
swift, clean-cut and brooking no question nor delay. Ten men went
galloping off far to the southward, to vanish among the foothills
and reappear on the pass behind the enemy, while a dozen Boers,
springing up from the bowels of the earth, followed hard on their
heels. Ten more took the horses and fell back out of range of the
firing; and the remainder of the squadron stayed in their places and
helped to play out the game.
It was all quite simple, all a matter of course. Instead of the fuss
and fume and chaos of fighting, it had worked itself out like a
problem in mathematics, and Weldon, as he lay on the ground with his
Lee-Enfield cuddled into the curve of his shoulder, felt himself
reducing it to a pair of simultaneous equations: if X Britons equal
Y Boers on the firing line, and Y Britons draw off the fire of W
Boers, then how many Britons--But there came a second flash and a
second spatter, nearer, this time; and he lost his mathematics in a
sudden rush of bad temper which made him long to fly at the
invisible foe and beat him about the head with his clubbed rifle.
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