At Kekepoort And At Hekspoort Clements
Fought Successful Skirmishes, Losing At The Latter Action
Lieutenant Stanley Of The Yeomanry, The Somersetshire Cricketer,
Who Showed, As So Many Have Done, How Close Is The Connection
Between The Good Sportsman And The Good Soldier.
On the 12th
Douglas took thirty-nine prisoners near Lichtenburg.
On the 18th
Rundle captured a gun at Bronkhorstfontein. Hart at Potchefstroom,
Hildyard in the Utrecht district, Macdonald in the Orange River
Colony, everywhere the British Generals were busily stamping out
the remaining embers of what had been so terrible a conflagration.
Much trouble but no great damage was inflicted upon the British
during this last stage of the war by the incessant attacks upon the
lines of railway by roving bands of Boers. The actual interruption
of traffic was of little consequence, for the assiduous Sappers
with their gangs of Basuto labourers were always at hand to repair
the break. But the loss of stores, and occasionally of lives, was
more serious. Hardly a day passed that the stokers and drivers were
not made targets of by snipers among the kopjes, and occasionally a
train was entirely destroyed. [Footnote: It is to be earnestly
hoped that those in authority will see that these men obtain the
medal and any other reward which can mark our sense of their
faithful service. One of them in the Orange River Colony, after
narrating to me his many hairbreadth escapes, prophesied bitterly
that the memory of his services would pass with the need for them.]
Chief among these raiders was the wild Theron, who led a band which
contained men of all nations - the same gang who had already, as
narrated, held up a train in the Orange River Colony.
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