I fired my first shot at a fellow-creature within four days of my arrival. We rode out down the road to the south to search some hills, and found the Boers in fair strength away to the east of us. We were dismounted and pushed up on foot through a wood to a . There for the first time I saw the enemy, little respectable-looking unsoldierlike figures, mostly in black, about upon a perhaps a mile away. I took a shot at one of these figures just before it vanished into a gully. One or two bullets came overhead, and I tried to remember what I had picked up about cover. They made a sound, whiff-er-whiff, a kind of tearing whistle, and there was nothing but a distant crackling to give one a hint of their direction until they took effect. I remember the smell of the grass amidst which I , my sudden disgust to realize I was lying, and had to lie now for an indefinite time, in the open sunlight and far from any shade, and how I wondered whether after all I had wanted to come to this war.  
We lay shooting until the afternoon, I couldn't understand why; we went forward a little, and at last upon Lad............