Numbers Of Bullocks Were Soon Shot Down, And The Removal Of
The Hundred And Eighty Wagons Made Impossible.
The convoy, which
contained forage and provisions, had no guard of its own, but the
drift was held by
Colonel Ridley with one company of Gordons and
one hundred and fifty mounted infantry without artillery, which
certainly seems an inadequate force to secure the most vital and
vulnerable spot in the line of communications of an army of forty
thousand men. The Boers numbered at the first some five or six
hundred men, but their position was such that they could not be
attacked. On the other hand they were not strong enough to leave
their shelter in order to drive in the British guard, who, lying in
extended order between the wagons and the assailants, were keeping
up a steady and effective fire. Captain Head, of the East
Lancashire Regiment, a fine natural soldier, commanded the British
firing line, and neither he nor any of his men doubted that they
could hold off the enemy for an indefinite time. In the course of
the afternoon reinforcements arrived for the Boers, but Kitchener's
Horse and a field battery came back and restored the balance of
power. In the evening the latter swayed altogether in favour of the
British, as Tucker appeared upon the scene with the whole of the
14th Brigade; but as the question of an assault was being debated a
positive order arrived from Lord Roberts that the convoy should be
abandoned and the force return.
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