Within a few hours of their
entering the town they were fiercely attacked by De Wet.
Colonel Spragge seems to have acted for the best. Under a heavy
fire he caused his troopers to fall back upon his transport, which
had been left at a point a few miles out upon the Kroonstad Road,
where three defensible kopjes sheltered a valley in which the
cattle and horses could be herded. A stream ran through it. There
were all the materials there for a stand which would have brought
glory to the British arms. The men were of peculiarly fine quality,
many of them from the public schools and from the universities, and
if any would fight to the death these with their sporting spirit
and their high sense of honour might have been expected to do so.
They had the stronger motive for holding out, as they had taken
steps to convey word of their difficulty to Colvile and to Methuen.
The former continued his march to Heilbron, and it is hard to blame
him for doing so, but Methuen on hearing the message, which was
conveyed to him at great personal peril by Corporal Hankey of the
Yeomanry, pushed on instantly with the utmost energy, though he
arrived too late to prevent, or even to repair, a disaster.
