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The Defence of Duffer’s Drift is a short 1904 book by British army officer E. D. Swinton. He was a captain of the Royal Engineers in South Africa during the Boer War (1899-1902). The book aims to instruct officers in platoon or small unit tactics. Despite the serious and sometimes horrific subject matter, the book is not without humor.

The narrator of the book is Lieutenant Backsight Forethought (BF). He has command of a platoon of 50 men. They have to defend Duffer’s Drift, a shallow natural crossing point of a river. A large force of Boers, or South African soldiers, unknown to BF is moving toward his position at this ford or drift. The book describes six scenarios or “dreams” of what happens when they meet and fight. In the early scenarios, BF and his British troops are defeated, mainly due to the inexperience and complacency of Lieutenant BF. But after each defeat, he learns lessons and adapts his strategy.

Here are some samples from the first scenario or dream. The narrator BF is like the honourable upper class twit characters sometimes created by authors like P.G. Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome and Evelyn Waugh.