Chermside's Brigade Occupied The Same Position On The
East.
Two other divisions and the cavalry stood round, alert and
eager, like terriers round a rat-hole, while all day the pitiless
guns crashed their common shell, their shrapnel, and their lyddite
into the river-bed.
Already down there, amid slaughtered oxen and
dead horses under a burning sun, a horrible pest-hole had been
formed which sent its mephitic vapours over the countryside.
Occasionally the sentries down the river saw amid the brown eddies
of the rushing water the floating body of a Boer which had been
washed away from the Golgotha above. Dark Cronje, betrayer of
Potchefstroom, iron-handed ruler of natives, reviler of the
British, stern victor of Magersfontein, at last there has come a
day of reckoning for you!
On Wednesday, the 21st, the British, being now sure of their grip
of Cronje, turned upon the Boer force which had occupied the hill
to the south-east of the drift. It was clear that this force,
unless driven away, would be the vanguard of the relieving army
which might be expected to assemble from Ladysmith, Bloemfontein,
Colesberg, or wherever else the Boers could detach men. Already it
was known that reinforcements who had left Natal whenever they
heard that the Free State was invaded were drawing near. It was
necessary to crush the force upon the hill before it became too
powerful. For this purpose the cavalry set forth, Broadwood with
the 10th Hussars, 12th Lancers, and two batteries going round on
one side, while French with the 9th and 16th Lancers, the Household
Cavalry, and two other batteries skirted the other.
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