De Wet's General Aim In His Operations Seems To Have Been To Check
The British Blockhouse Building.
With his main force in the
Langberg he could threaten the line which was now being erected
between Bethlehem and Harrismith, a line against which his main
commando was destined, only two months later, to beat itself in
vain.
Sixty miles to the north a second line was being run across
country from Frankfort to Standerton, and had reached a place
called Tafelkop. A covering party of East Lancashires and Yeomanry
watched over the workers, but De Wet had left a portion of his
force in that neighbourhood, and they harassed the blockhouse
builders to such an extent that General Hamilton, who was in
command, found it necessary to send in to Frankfort for support.
The British columns there had just returned exhausted from a drive,
but three bodies under Damant, Rimington, and Wilson were at once
despatched to clear away the enemy.
The weather was so atrocious that the veld resembled an inland sea,
with the kopjes as islands rising out of it. By this stage of the
war the troops were hardened to all weathers, and they pushed
swiftly on to the scene of action. As they approached the spot
where the Boers had been reported, the line had been extended over
many miles, with the result that it had become very attenuated and
dangerously weak in the centre. At this point Colonel Damant and
his small staff were alone with the two guns and the maxim, save
for a handful of Imperial Yeomanry (91st), who acted as escort to
the guns.
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