But the suspicion will recur that perhaps the army hedging us in is not large after all.

It is a bad look-out if, as Captain Lambton put it, we are being "stuck up by a man and a boy." Nothing is so difficult to estimate as Boer numbers, and we never take enough account of the enemy's mobility.

They can concentrate rapidly at any given point and gain the appearance of numbers which they don't possess.

However, the balloon reports the presence of laagers of ten commandoes in sight.

We may therefore assume about as many out of sight, and consider that we are probably doing our duty as a pawn.
This morning the Boers hardly gave a sign of life, except that just before noon "Puffing Billy" shelled a platelayer's house on the flat beyond the racecourse, in the attempt to drive out our scouts who were making a defended position of it.
In the afternoon I rode up to the Rifle Brigade at King's Post, above the old camp, and met Captain Paley, whom I last saw administering a province in Crete.