The Cavalry Which Had Come From French's Command At
Colesberg Had Already Reached The Rendezvous, Travelling By Road To
Naauwpoort, And Thence By Train.
This force consisted of the
Carabineers, New South Wales Lancers, Inniskillings, composite
regiment of Household Cavalry, 10th Hussars, with some mounted
infantry and two batteries of Horse Artillery, making a force of
nearly three thousand sabres.
To this were added the 9th and 12th
Lancers from Modder River, the 16th Lancers from India, the Scots
Greys, which had been patrolling Orange River from the beginning of
the war, Rimington's Scouts, and two brigades of mounted infantry
under Colonels Ridley and Hannay. The force under this latter
officer had a severe skirmish on its way to the rendezvous and lost
fifty or sixty in killed, wounded, and missing. Five other
batteries of Horse Artillery were added to the force, making seven
in all, with a pontoon section of Royal Engineers. The total number
of men was about five thousand. By the night of Sunday, February
11th, this formidable force had concentrated at Ramdam, twenty
miles north-east of Belmont, and was ready to advance. At two in
the morning of Monday, February 12th, the start was made, and the
long sinuous line of night-riders moved off over the shadowy veld,
the beat of twenty thousand hoofs, the clank of steel, and the
rumble of gunwheels and tumbrils swelling into a deep low roar like
the surge upon the shingle.
Two rivers, the Riet and the Modder, intervened between French and
Kimberley.
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