Horses Died Under Their Riders, But Still
The Column Marched Over The Shadowy Veld Under The Brilliant Stars.
By Happy Chance Or Splendid Calculation They Were Heading Straight
For The One Drift Which Was Still Open To Cronje.
It was a close
thing.
At midday on Saturday the Boer advance guard was already
near to the kopjes which command it. But French's men, still full
of fight after their march of thirty miles, threw themselves in
front and seized the position before their very eyes. The last of
the drifts was closed. If Cronje was to get across now, he must
crawl out of his trench and fight under Roberts's conditions, or he
might remain under his own conditions until Roberts's forces closed
round him. With him lay the alternative. In the meantime, still
ignorant of the forces about him, but finding himself headed off by
French, he made his way down to the river and occupied a long
stretch of it between Paardeberg Drift and Wolveskraal Drift,
hoping to force his way across. This was the situation on the night
of Saturday, February 17th.
In the course of that night the British brigades, staggering with
fatigue but indomitably resolute to crush their evasive enemy, were
converging upon Paardeberg. The Highland Brigade, exhausted by a
heavy march over soft sand from Jacobsdal to Klip Drift, were
nerved to fresh exertions by the word 'Magersfontein,' which flew
from lip to lip along the ranks, and pushed on for another twelve
miles to Paardeberg.
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