On Crossing The Railroad De Wet Turned Furiously Upon His
Pursuers, And, Taking An Excellent Position Upon A Line Of
Kopjes
rising out of the huge expanse of the Karoo, he fought a stubborn
rearguard action in order to give
Time for his convoy to get ahead.
He was hustled off the hills, however, the Australian Bushmen with
great dash carrying the central kopje, and the guns driving the
invaders to the westward. Leaving all his wagons and his reserve
ammunition behind him, the guerilla chief struck north-west, moving
with great swiftness, but never succeeding in shaking off Plumer's
pursuit. The weather continued, however, to be atrocious, rain and
hail falling with such violence that the horses could hardly be
induced to face it. For a week the two sodden, sleepless,
mud-splashed little armies swept onwards over the Karoo. De Wet
passed northwards through Strydenburg, past Hopetown, and so to the
Orange River, which was found to be too swollen with the rains to
permit of his crossing. Here upon the 23rd, after a march of
forty-five miles on end, Plumer ran into him once more, and
captured with very little fighting a fifteen-pounder, a pom-pom,
and close on to a hundred prisoners. Slipping away to the east, De
Wet upon February 24th crossed the railroad again between Krankuil
and Orange River Station, with Thorneycroft's column hard upon his
heels. The Boer leader was now more anxious to escape from the
Colony than ever he had been to enter it, and he rushed
distractedly from point to point, endeavouring to find a ford over
the great turbid river which cut him off from his own country.
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