An Immediate Advance Might Have Secured The
Position At Once, But, For Some Reason Which Is Inexplicable, An
Aimless March To The Left Was Followed By A Retirement To The
Original Position Of Warren's Division, And So Two Invaluable Days
Were Wasted.
We have the positive assurance of Commandant Edwards,
who was Chief of Staff to General Botha, that a vigorous turning
movement upon the left would at this time have completely
outflanked the Boer position and opened a way to Ladysmith.
A small success, the more welcome for its rarity, came to the
British arms on this first day. Dundonald's men had been thrown out
to cover the left of the infantry advance and to feel for the right
of the Boer position. A strong Boer patrol, caught napping for
once, rode into an ambuscade of the irregulars. Some escaped, some
held out most gallantly in a kopje, but the final result was a
surrender of twenty-four unwounded prisoners, and the finding of
thirteen killed and wounded, including de Mentz, the field-cornet
of Heilbron. Two killed and two wounded were the British losses in
this well-managed affair. Dundonald's force then took its position
upon the extreme left of Warren's advance.
The British were now moving upon the Boers in two separate bodies,
the one which included Lyttelton's and Coke's Brigades from
Potgieter's Drift, making what was really a frontal attack, while
the main body under Warren, who had crossed at Trichard's Drift,
was swinging round upon the Boer right.
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