_IMPRESSIONS OF BLOEMFONTEIN—JOIN THE 8TH MOUNTED
INFANTRY REGIMENT ON OUTPOST_
Long streets, ill-paved and deep in mud or dust; a low stoep-shaded
cottage with vines trailing about its posts here and there between long
rows of featureless shops; a large market square where no farm produce
is displayed; a club frequented by British officers who have little time
to lounge; several churches of the primmest Dutch type, with tall
steeples that cut sharply against the clear sky in lines
uncompromisingly straight; some public buildings, pretentious without
grace or beauty; on one side a steep hill terraced with houses of which
little but the corrugated iron roofs can be seen; on the other, roads
that straggle off to level outskirts, where villas painfully new stand
in the midst of flowerless gardens surrounded by barbed wire. These were
the first impressions of Bloemfontein gathered by Lumsden’s Horse, and
few troopers had any opportunity to modify these impressions in more
favourable circumstances afterwards. The camp to which A Company went
originally at Rietfontein was within two miles of the town, and might
have been pleasant enough if thousands of hoofs had not cut up its turf,
and the ground had not been used as a dumping-place for rubbish which
Boer commandos could not turn to any use. Some of them had been there
before Lumsden’s Horse, and several British regiments also. So many tens
of thousands of soldiers were camped round about the town that they may
have interrupted the currents of salubrious air which made Bloemfontein
famous in other days as a resort for invalids. There were plenty of
invalids to be seen there in the early weeks of April 1900, but they did
not regard it as the best type of sanatorium, and men who had to sleep
in small tents on the reeking ground of Rietfontein would not willingly
go there again in search of health. They had hardly begun to realise how
serious was the stoppage of a fresh water supply which the Boers had cut
off from the main at Modder River. Hundreds of old wells existed in the
town and its outskirts, and by opening these enough water could be drawn
for immediate wants. But, alas! the water had been undisturbed since
Bloemfontein began to draw its supply from the distant waterworks some
six or seven years earlier. What impurities had drained into the wells
during all that time nobody knew until hospitals filled rapidly with
patients suffering from enteric and dysentery. Rietfontein was showing
symptoms of an outbreak, and so, after a week under canvas there,
Lumsden’s Horse got the welcome order to strike camp and form a new one
some three miles farther north, by Deel’s Farm, where a clear spruit
flows over its bed of white gravel between banks that are shaded by tall
eucalyptus trees and drooping sallows.
After days on duty, in which they were not allowed to be slack, troopers
felt little inclination for walking the four or five miles to
Bloemfontein, which did not become more cheerful as the number of troops
increased, except for the traders, who were rapidly getting back all
they had lost by the war and a great deal more. Officers had always the
chance, whenever they could get away from camp for an hour or two, of
pleasant social meetings at the Bloemfontein Club, where generals,
regimental commanders, and company officers from other brigades came
together for a little while at lunch or afternoon tea and exchanged all
the rumours that could be told in a few minutes—and they were many. It
was a place of strange meetings. Men from the uttermost corners of the
earth, who had perhaps not seen each other for years, foregathered
there, only to separate a little later and go on their ways with
different columns, none knew whither. Troopers had similar experiences
in the streets and inns of Bloemfontein, where nearly every regimental
badge of the British Army and every distinguishing plume adopted by
Irregulars who had come to fight as ‘soldiers of the Queen’ were to be
seen in a variety that seemed endless. Brothers whose paths in life had
parted when they left school, one going east, another west or south,
came face to face in the streets of that little Free State town or
rubbed shoulders in a motley crowd of khaki-clad soldiers, sometimes
without recognising each other, until accident gave them some clue. A
rough word or two of careless greeting, a tight hand-grip, a steadfast
look into eyes that remind the boys of father or mother, a light laugh
on lips that might otherwise betray too much feeling, a drink together
(if it is to be had), for ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ and then with a jaunty ‘So
long, old chap,’ they part again. It is a superstition, or at any rate a
recognised custom, not to say ‘Good-bye’ in such circumstances. But if
men only thought of its literal meaning, what better wish could there
be? Yet, for all its stir and bustle and dramatic incidents,
Bloemfontein was a dull place in those days for any man who entered it
and found no intimate friends there to greet him. Comrades they all
were, but in a rough-and-ready sort of comradeship that needed the fire
of the battlefield to try it and perchance anneal it into something
stronger than the ties of mere kinship. But this is a thing which only
soldiers understand, and seldom even they. Lumsden’s Horse knew it not
then, but for some of them the secret was to be disclosed before many
days had passed, and in a form that will never fade from their memory.
Meanwhile, they went about their duties methodically enough in camp or
took their pleasures sadly in streets where thousands of soldiers
wandered daily, finding no entertainment, no place of resort except
dingy bars, where liquors of more than alcoholic potency were sold, and
very little change from campaign fare except at a price that made even
the necessaries of life prohibited luxuries for a man who had no more
than his shilling a day to spend. One of Lumsden’s Horse who was sent
into Bloemfontein on orderly duty gives a vivid sketch of all this in a
few touches that are the more graphic because they only pretend to note
passing impressions. Writing a day after B Company’s arrival at Deel’s
Farm, he shows how the men had to rub their horses down while standing
inches deep in mud. So much rain was out of season, but South Africa is,
like other places, occasionally fickle in this respect. To troopers it
did not seem an ideal way of spending Easter Monday, and the whistle, of
which officers made free use, must have been irritating to nerves
already overstrained, for it is never mentioned without a forcible
prefix. However, when rain ceased and sunshine appeared for an hour in
the afternoon, these men were merry enough at a game of cricket, which,
by violating all the higher rules, must have reminded them of similar
sports in England when they were boys and welcomed Easter Monday as the
day of all others appropriate to cricket. The next morning a great cheer
rolled from camp to camp, and Lumsden’s Horse, responding lustily,
passed it on to the next without asking what the unusual excitement
meant. When they heard afterwards that troops were cheering because
‘Kruger had surrendered,’ a strange depression took hold of them. At
that moment all the discomforts and drudgery of a soldier’s life were
forgotten in the humiliating thought that the corps would have to go
back to India without a chance of proving itself in battle. It turned
out, however, to be all mere rumour, though not so baseless as some of
which Lumsden’s Horse had after-experience. The Transvaal President’s
offer to negotiate for peace on terms all in his own favour must have
been known in England then, and in some mysterious way a reflex of it
came to camps on the veldt, where troops, who had seen plenty of the
fighting that Lumsden’s Horse were eager for, welcomed the illusive
tidings with a cheer. In its train, however, came something nearly as
good—a post bringing letters from ‘England, home, and beauty,’ and for
one non-commissioned officer at least ‘a parcel full of excellent
things.’ Before he had time to enjoy these he was under orders for
Bloemfontein, and after a ride through pouring rain he got there in time
to hear another disconcerting rumour, and to find some of his comrades
selling their kit because ‘they had been ordered back.’ Wisely resolving
not to act on anything but definite orders, and, taking the advice of a
corporal in the City Imperial Volunteers, who persuaded him ‘to sit
tight,’ he waited, making the best of circumstances that were by no
means bright according to his own brief record, which runs, ‘No dinner
to be had at the station. Got tea sixpence a cup, bread and jam
sixpence.’ Hungry and dispirited, he turned in and went to bed at the
station, which means something very different from the untravelled
civilian’s idea of a bed. Then next morning ‘bought a bob’s worth of oat
straw for horse—groomed and fed him. Put my wet things out to dry, and
sallied forth to the station. Had an excellent breakfast: porridge,
haddock, chops, and two cups of coffee, for three shillings. Went to the
hospital to try and get my leg dressed, but couldn’t find anybody to
speak to. Thence to a most pleasant chemist—a Dutchman. Went to the
station for lunch—another three bob.’ Not a profitable day’s work for a
corporal on Cavalry pay without ‘colonial allowances.’ After that came
tea and dinner, so that he was evidently doing his best to prove the
wisdom of Mark Tapley’s philosophy. Having found circumstances in which
it was a credit to be jolly, he made the most of them. It is not every
soldier, however, who, having indulged in a little extravagance of that
kind, could write, ‘Afterwards to the bank, and had an agreeable
interview with the manager’; nor every man, with a balance to his
credit, who would have turned cheerfully again towards the rough life of
a camp and the unknown hardships that were to follow. When orders came
next day for all Lumsden’s Horse to rejoin their corps in readiness for
an immediate advance, this non-commissioned officer paid another visit
to his friend the chemist and asked how much he owed. ‘The chemist
refused to take anything. Pretty good that for a Dutchman and evidently
a pro-Boer.’ With that pleasant experience blotting out all unfavourable
impressions of Bloemfontein, the corporal rode back to camp at Deel’s
Farm to find all the tents being struck.
So they had to spend a miserable night by the bivouac fire and get
what amusement they could out of good stories. One, suggested perhaps
by talk of chemists and surgical operations, is worthy to be
preserved. To appreciate the point of the joke you must know that a
lieutenant-general’s badges of rank are a sword and bâton crossed,
with the crown above them. A man of the —— Yeomanry, then quartered in
Bloemfontein, was suffering agonies from toothache, and, like our
friend the corporal, had searched every hospital in vain for a surgeon
who might have leisure to extract it. As he crossed the Market Square,
a general of division whose kindness of heart is as notorious as his
strength of language, was coming out of the Club. To him the yeoman
advanced, and, after a hesitating preface, asked the General whether
he would mind drawing a tooth. For a moment the General was
dumbfounded, but then his powers of expression came back to him. ‘What
the devil do you mean?’ he roared, thinking the yeoman was
unpardonably familiar. The man’s face fell. ‘I’m very sorry, sir,’ he
said, ‘but our doctor’s on leave, and——’ ‘But,’ said the officer,
smiling at the man’s mistake, ‘I’m not a doctor; I’m General ——’ The
yeoman stammered, ‘But—but—your badge, sir!’ The General
good-humouredly turned his shoulder to the abashed trooper. ‘Here you
are, my lad; what’s the matter with the badge? “Crossed swords, bâton,
and crown.”’ ‘Good heavens!’ said the man, ‘I hope you’ll forgive me,
sir. I thought it was the skull and cross-bones!’
[Illustration:
_Photo: F. Kapp & Co._
TRANSPORT AND WATER CARTS
]
Before daybreak in the morning of April 21, Lumsden’s Horse were roused
to pack kits and saddle up for their march. Impartial observers said
they were very smart about it, but a story went round that the Colonel
had expressed himself as much disappointed with B Company, saying that
the others would have saddled up and walked round them three times. This
was apparently only a playful invention, but it so angered one trooper
that he could only express his feelings in choice Hindustani. He was
mollified afterwards on learning that A Company had really admired the
soldierly way in which B Company got ready, and then he excused his
strong language by writing, ‘I understand now the expression “Swear like
a trooper.” We hear and do more of it every day.‘ It was a painful
confession for one of Lumsden’s Horse to make, but the incident,
apparently trivial, shows that a wholesome spirit of emulation in deeds
was animating the men, and that would always be regarded by soldiers as
ample atonement for unnecessary rivalry in linguistic attainments. The
time was close at hand, too, when Lumsden’s Horse would have more
serious things to think about than these. Yet nobody knows better than
old campaigners how little things occupy the thoughts of men even when
they are doing great deeds. No opportunity for achieving greatness came
to the corps during its first day’s march through a country where the
enemy’s appearance might be looked for at any moment, but in another way
the men showed their fitness for a soldier’s work—by helping the
transport out of difficulties. It was in crossing a drift at the Little
Modder River that carts stuck with wheels jammed tightly in deep holes
between slippery boulders, and teams floundered in fruitless attempts to
recover their footing. The Editor, having been in one of those holes,
horse and all, has reason to remember the place and the swirl of water
where it rashes over rocky ledges into a deeper pool. By dint of manful
work, Lumsden’s Horse got their carts clear of the drift, only to find
them axle deep in the treacherous soil of a neighbouring vlei some
minutes later. Then ammunition had to be taken out and carried to firm
ground and carts lifted bodily out of the mire. It was an experience by
which the transport drivers learned not to trust appearances and to
beware of grass that looked unusually green. Still, as Sergeant
Stephens, of the Transport, wrote in relating his experiences, ‘If
anything ever frightened our drivers it was the word “drift”; you should
have seen the worried looks when they heard there was a drift ahead.’
That night the corps bivouacked beyond Glen, where General Tucker’s
division had been in touch with the enemy for nearly a month and warding
off frequent attempts to interfere with Engineers who were hard at work
on a ‘deviation’ near the ruined railway bridge. There they had to
bivouac with nothing but blankets to protect them from the bitterly cold
wind, and they went to sleep supperless because the transport, delayed
by many causes, had not come up. No alarms or excursions disturbed their
rest that night, but their march next morning was to the accompaniment
of distant pom-poms and heavier guns and the sounds of fighting not far
off. They did not know the meaning of it all then. It seemed to them but
a local skirmish, and not the penultimate phase of a great movement in
which Ian Hamilton, French, and Rundle had been sweeping the Boers
before them from Wepener to Thaba ’Nchu and thence eastward and
northward, clearing the country for a still greater movement. No shots
came near the marching column. The screen of outposts holding
inquisitive Boers in check was miles away from the drift where Lumsden’s
Horse crossed the main Modder River, and, for all they could see, it
might have been still miles off when they marched up a steep track and
bivouacked on the pleasant hillside, relieving some New South Wales
Mounted Rifles, whose horses had been used up by incessant patrolling.
They were, however, in the outpost line there as part of the 8th Mounted
Infantry, commanded by Colonel Ross, to whom Colonel Lumsden reported
himself that afternoon. Some officers of Regular regiments whose pickets
were near at hand came to have a look at these Indian Volunteers, who
were quite gratified afterwards to hear that the Colonel of the Norfolks
thought them ‘a very fine set of men, but undisciplined.’ It was true
enough they had not much discipline of the parade-ground type, but they
were held together by bonds stronger than any rules or regulations can
weld, and inspired by a sentiment that would have made them ‘play the
game’ wherever fortune might place them. And part of that game was for
them to be soldiers in deed as well as in spirit, though they might lack
the mere outward show of subordination. Spytfontein, which formed the
centre of a position held by Lumsden’s Horse, is an outwork of the
rugged range that sweeps from east to west in an irregular curve just
north of Karree Siding, and from which General Tucker’s division, aided
by a turning movement of Cavalry and Mounted Infantry under General
French, dislodged the Boers a month earlier. Though they had made
several attempts to reoccupy that range in the hope of being able to
shell us out of Glen, they lost ground each time, and finally retired to
an entrenched position in front of Brandfort, to which Spytfontein was
our nearest approach. Trooper Burn-Murdoch in one of his clever letters
to the ‘Englishman’ gave an admirable sketch of outpost work when it was
a new experience to Lumsden’s Horse:
Spytfontein consists of several kopjes with rocks between and, so far
as I could see, only one farmhouse, so you will not find it marked on
the map. We took the place of some Australians, as they had been
pretty busy and their horses were all knocked up. To the north of us
were Loch’s Horse about 500 yards off, and quite close to our southern
flank were some companies of East Lancashire Mounted Infantry. What
with outlying pickets, guards, horse pickets, and such like, we did
not find time hang heavy on our hands. And, as our nearest neighbours
over the kopjes were large bodies of Boers with heavy guns and other
arms, we had, as the saying is, to sleep with one eye open, and that
one well skinned. I have many a time steered my way by Old Crux away
down south. But I found that gazing at it over the icy-cold muzzle of
a Lee-Metford was, though possibly just as profitable and useful a
job, very much less romantic.
One reads in Olive Schreiner and in other African authors’ books of
the never-to-be-forgotten pleasure of sleeping out on the great South
African veldt, the pale calm moon overhead, and only the shade of the
waggon for covering, around which the trek oxen rest after their day’s
toil, the monotonous crunch, crunch of their jaws as they chew the cud
being the only sound that breaks the awe-inspiring silence. My
personal experience was vile—cold winds, little or no moon, wet grass
and rocks to lie upon, soaking wet feet and clothes, one wet blanket
and ditto coat, the only change to this being two hours’ sentry-go
every four hours.
[Illustration:
OUTLYING PICKET TAKING UP POSITION
(_From a sketch by J.S. Cowen_)
]
We were not allowed to walk about as on ordinary sentry-go, but had to
keep quiet and sit or lie down for the most of the time, with our eyes
straining out into the dark north, where every piece of scrub or large
stone rapidly grew into a slouch-hatted Boer, as our brains became
hypnotised with ceaseless gazing. And on our keen sense of hearing and
sight depended the lives of all the corps!
One afternoon the alarm was given, and we promptly ‘stood to arms’ in
excited expectation of an attack. But it proved to be a false alarm;
and I was not surprised that it was so, as our valiant signaller
standing on the sky-line of a neighbouring kopje flagged the news down
to us, and of course all the Boers between our pickets and Kroonstad
at once knew that Lumsden’s Horse were awake _and there_—so they
thought better of it. Some few days afterwards we got orders to parade
at 2.30 A.M. to take part in an attack on a Boer force which had been
‘located’ on some hills to the south-west of us and skirting the
Modder River. I was horse sentry that night, so got practically no
sleep. At 2.30, however, amid a thundercloud of English and
Hindustani, Lumsden’s Horse awoke and managed to saddle up in the
darkness; and then, by dint of shouting out each other’s names, we
managed to wriggle into our proper subsections. As one man put it,
‘the bundabust was shocking.’
From the midst of this noisy dark chaos emerging, away we marched.
Bitterly cold and cheerless was that morning, every second man’s teeth
chattering like so many castanets, while one’s feet felt _en masse_
with the stirrup irons. In a short time we were joined by Loch’s
Horse, the Victorian Mounted Rifles, the Artillery, and Lancashire
Mounted Infantry, and silence was the strict order of the march; and
silence it was pretty well, until one of Loch’s Horse, with his
cut-off open, let bang two shots—phew! phew! went the two nickels over
the lot of us, and half of us ‘bowed our heads’ reverently. I believe
Mr. Loch got fourteen days’ for that, and served him jolly well right.
The sun coming out, our spirits rose somewhat, and our fingers became
warm enough to pull out bits of biscuit from our haversacks and so
have a sumptuous breakfast on horseback. An hour and a half’s march
brought us to a deep creek with a good drift over it, and this we
crossed in safety. On the other side we found a long and broad expanse
of plain gradually sloping up to a ridge of high kopjes some four
miles in front of us. On these kopjes our friends the Boers were
supposed to be waiting for us, so we spread out into extended single
ranks with about eleven yards interval. A kind friend having given me
a cheroot, I lit up and enjoyed a peaceful smoke, while at the same
time I could not help wondering how many more smokes the Boers would
allow me to have. Shortly afterwards we got the order to advance at
the canter, which we did; as our scouts were barely 1,500 yards ahead
and had not had time to ‘search’ the kopjes properly, this was, in my
opinion, a risky order. However, we got there.
Firing had meanwhile commenced on our left, and two of our Victorian
scouts were bagged. Our pom-poms and guns then tuned up; boom!
pom-pom-pom, pom-pom! boom—and after a little of this double-bass tune
the Boers bolted and left us in possession. Skirting along the
scrub-covered banks of the Modder River, we at length reached Waggon
Bridge, over which my subsection took the lead as scouts; and about
midday arrived at a Boer farm some two and a half miles further on.
Here we stayed the night, camping out on some commanding kopjes. A
strict watch was, of course, kept up all night. Next day we duly
received some nice compliments from the General in command on our
rapid march and successful capture of Waggon Bridge; and then, like
the celebrated Duke of York’s Army, we marched back again to our camp.
An officer of the corps, writing to friends at Calcutta, adds some
interesting details:
We are right up at the front now holding a line of kopjes overlooking
a large plain all round. There is nothing in the plain except one or
two small kopjes occupied by the Boers between here and Brandfort.
They come close in every night, and often do a little sniping at our
outposts, but they disappear at daybreak. The other morning four
Australians went out to a farm about three miles off; there were
supposed to be only women there, and they had a couple of white flags
up; but as soon as the first man got into the yard several Boers
jumped out of the pigsty, shot his horse, wounded him and took him
prisoner—the others had to clear. They say about a dozen Boers come
there every night. The Australians have a picket a mile off, but they
have not succeeded in catching anybody. The General won’t allow firing
into the farm, because he says the women can’t help the Boers coming
for supplies and things. The farm where we get our milk and stuff is
owned by a Boer who has given up his arms; he fought against us, and
bucks that he shot a Gordon Highlander officer at ten paces at
Magersfontein. This Boer was in an awful funk lest his old friends
should reach his farm and shoot him; at least, he said so. The night
before last our sentries on one of the pickets were quite certain they
saw our Boer friend lamp-signalling, and our signallers on the kopje
noticed it also. Twenty Boers were seen in the distance in the
afternoon, and he was evidently signalling to them. To-day there was a
quantity of ammunition found in one of his kraals, so he will probably
find himself in chokee. The day before I rejoined from hospital we
attacked, or, rather, the Boers attacked us, but were shelled out of
their position. Two of our officers who were left in camp saw from one
kopje a shell burst in the middle of five men, and saw them all go
down.
On the 23rd, when our men were sent away to the right with some other
M.I. and the Cheshires to seize a bridge and to drive Boer raiders
from some kopjes, they did not apparently wait to be turned out, but
cleared and trekked across the plain to Brandfort. Our men never fired
a shot, though Loch’s Horse on their left had a little shooting and
lost one man, an advance scout. The Boers let him walk right into
their midst, and as he turned round to bolt his horse came down and
they took him prisoner. Our position is about, as far as I can make
out, the centre of a half circle from Karree Siding to the Glen. One
quarter circle is held by the 7th Division, two batteries, and various
M.I. The other afternoon some Boers started sniping at our
signal-post, but came nowhere near hitting; we all stood to arms, and
when thirty men were sent out they cleared. They generally amuse
themselves sniping at our outposts at something like 2,000 yards with
no effect. We have to furnish three night pickets—three officers, five
non-commissioned, and sixty men every night; it falls rather hard on
the section officers, as one is sick, and the company commanders and
the staff, of course, don’t do it, so it means three of the seven are
out every night. There is not very much to do on picket except post
the sentries, visit them two or three times in the night, and get them
in again a little before sunrise, when they return to camp. There is
also a day outpost of twenty men and two non-commissioned officers,
and generally a convoy of similar size into Karree Siding; so the men,
too, have enough to do.
There was a fight expected to-day (29th), but it has not come off,
only a few shots on our left. The order has just come for us to go out
to-morrow, leaving a sufficient guard to strike our tents and bring
them on if necessary. We hope it is the real advance this time.
Douglas Jones proved himself such an excellent Assistant-Quartermaster
that, as B Company’s appointments were all probationary, he has been
made Company Quartermaster-Sergeant. We lost poor old Roger at Kruger
Siding on the way up. He had quite turned into a regimental dog, and
on the march used generally to come along with the rearguard. We
halted to feed there one march, and he may have stopped with the Royal
Scots. It is quite possible he went back to Jagersfontein, and made up
to the Gloucester Yeomanry. They are bringing in two of our lame
horses, so if he did we may get him again.
[Illustration:
_Photo: Bourne & Shepherd_
CAPTAIN NOBLETT (MAJOR ROYAL IRISH RIFLES)
(Commanding B Company Lumsden’s Horse)
]
Another correspondent who was kept in camp by a slight ailment while his
comrades were away on patrol or some more exciting expedition records
how he got out kits and collected firewood, ‘a thing I never did
before,’ and how when others of his section came back they lay by the
dying embers to keep themselves warm and occasionally made the fire
flicker up by throwing more wood on it, reckless of danger from snipers,
who were always on the prowl. While the main body of Lumsden’s Horse
were away on that dash for Waggon Bridge the Boers made a counter
demonstration from Brandfort, supported by pom-poms, and got within a
thousand yards of the Red House Farm, but did no damage beyond
interfering with the domestic arrangements of a Regular regiment, whose
officers, being too far from the point of attack to see what really
happened, thought their position was being seriously threatened and
wanted 28,000 rounds of ammunition brought up from Karree Siding for
emergencies. The orderly corporal who sent that request on got jeered at
as an alarmist, when nothing happened except a retirement of the Boers.
The next day Lee Stewart, who had been left behind in hospital at Cape
Town, rejoined, and got a cordial welcome from all his comrades when
they marched back from their first little expedition. The section mess
was enabled to regale him at dinner that night on ‘chicken cooked by N——
and beefsteaks,’ so that one hardly wonders to find in the next day’s
record the melancholy note, ‘There little was to eat; sat round the
cook-house—two tins on the open veldt—and talked.’
In his official report Colonel Lumsden sums up all this in a few brief
sentences, having matters of more serious weight on his mind at the
moment:
Our departure for Spytfontein was delayed from 19th to 21st ult.—on
which date we left Bloemfontein, halting at the Glen _en route_,
arriving at Spytfontein midday on the 22nd ult. There I reported to
Colonel Ross, who commands our corps, consisting of the following
units, of which the approximate strength is given:[4]
Lumsden’s Horse 240
Loch’s Horse (a squadron) 220
West Riding and Oxford L.I. Companies of 220
M.I.
8th Battalion M.I. 420
____
Total 1,100
Late that evening I received orders to hold myself in readiness at
4.30 A.M. for Kranz Kraal, whither we marched in company with the 14th
Brigade, our object being to protect a bridge about eight miles
distant on the main road to Bloemfontein, which the Boers intended to
destroy. We were only just in time to prevent them carrying out their
object, by getting there before them, with only a couple of casualties
among the Australian contingent. We spent the night at the bridge,
returning the next day to Spytfontein. While at the latter place we
were fortunate in securing a few more Government remounts to replace
several unfit horses. I may mention that at Spytfontein we were in
easy sight of the Boer outposts, being only eight miles distant from
Brandfort. A long flat plain separated the Boer boundary from our own,
and their scouts were distinctly visible to us every morning. Nothing
eventful occurred during the next few days, but on the 30th we
received our baptism of fire as far as we are personally concerned.
[Illustration]
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Footnote 4:
The Suffolk Company M.I., numbering 120, joined later.—ED.
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