For Several Days The
Column Performed Its Familiar Work, And Gathered Up Forty Or Fifty
Prisoners.
On the 26th came news that the Boer commandos under
Grobler were concentrating against it, and that an attack in force
might be expected.
For two days there was continuous sniping, and
the column as it moved through the country saw Boer horsemen
keeping pace with it on the far flanks and in the rear. The weather
had been very bad, and it was in a deluge of cold driving rain that
the British set forth upon October 30th, moving towards
Brakenlaagte, which is a point about forty miles due south of
Middelburg. It was Benson's intention to return to his base.
About midday the column, still escorted by large bodies of
aggressive Boers, came to a difficult spruit swollen by the rain.
Here the wagons stuck, and it took some hours to get them all
across. The Boer fire was continually becoming more severe, and had
broken out at the head of the column as well as the rear. The
situation was rendered more difficult by the violence of the rain,
which raised a thick steam from the ground and made it impossible
to see for any distance. Major Anley, in command of the rearguard,
peering back, saw through a rift of the clouds a large body of
horsemen in extended order sweeping after them. 'There's miles of
them, begob!' cried an excited Irish trooper. Next instant the
curtain had closed once more, but all who had caught a glimpse of
that vision knew that a stern struggle was at hand.
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