Early In The Morning A Small Party Of The South
African Horse, Under Lieutenant Carlisle, Swam The Broad River
Under Fire And Brought Back The Ferry Boat, An Enterprise Which Was
Fortunately Bloodless, But Which Was Most Coolly Planned And
Gallantly Carried Out.
The way was now open to our advance, and
could it have been carried out as rapidly as it had begun the Boers
might conceivably have been scattered before they could
concentrate.
It was not the fault of the infantry that it was not
so. They were trudging, mud-spattered and jovial, at the very heels
of the horses, after a forced march which was one of the most
trying of the whole campaign. But an army of 20,000 men cannot be
conveyed over a river twenty miles from any base without elaborate
preparations being made to feed them. The roads were in such a
state that the wagons could hardly move, heavy rain had just
fallen, and every stream was swollen into a river; bullocks might
strain, and traction engines pant, and horses die, but by no human
means could the stores be kept up if the advance guard were allowed
to go at their own pace. And so, having ensured an ultimate
crossing of the river by the seizure of Mount Alice, the high hill
which commands the drift, the forces waited day after day, watching
in the distance the swarms of strenuous dark figures who dug and
hauled and worked upon the hillsides opposite, barring the road
which they would have to take.
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