By The
Dash Of The Royal Welsh Fusiliers And The Exertions Of The
Artillery Ridge After Ridge Was Carried, But Before Evening De Wet
With Supreme Skill Had Got His Convoy Across, And Had Broken Away,
First To The Eastward And Then To The North.
On the 9th Methuen was
in touch with him again, and the two savage little armies, Methuen
worrying at the haunch, and De Wet snapping back over his shoulder,
swept northward over the huge plains.
Wherever there was ridge or
kopje the Boer riflemen staved off the eager pursuers. Where the
ground lay flat and clear the British guns thundered onwards and
fired into the lines of wagons. Mile after mile the running fight
was sustained, but the other British columns, Broadwood's men and
Kitchener's men, had for some reason not come up. Methuen alone was
numerically inferior to the men he was chasing, but he held on with
admirable energy and spirit. The Boers were hustled off the kopjes
from which they tried to cover their rear. Twenty men of the
Yorkshire Yeomanry carried one hill with the bayonet, though only
twelve of them were left to reach the top.
De Wet trekked onwards during the night of the 9th, shedding wagons
and stores as he went. He was able to replace some of his exhausted
beasts from the farmhouses which he passed. Methuen on the morning
of the 10th struck away to the west, sending messages back to
Broadwood and Kitchener in the rear that they should bear to the
east, and so nurse the Boer column between them.
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