South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 7 (of 8) / The Guerilla War, from February 1901 to the Conclusion of Hostilities

by Louis Creswicke

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL COLVILLE’S OPERATIONS

In August Colonels Colville and Stewart, who had been operating north of Greylingstad, moved to Standerton. On the 10th the last officer entrained for Dundee to reinforce the troops on the north-east frontier of Natal, while Colonel Colville crossed the Klip and established an entrenched camp at Brakpan. He now, with mounted troops and guns, scoured the Upper Klip Valley, penetrated Natal by Muller’s Pass in the Drakensberg, and deposited at Newcastle his stock and prisoners captured during the march. This march was by no means a triumphal progress, for the district was fringed with Boers who sniped by day and brewed mischief by night. The dongas, spruits, and hills afforded them excellent cover, and the men needed nerves of iron to play a livelong game of hide-and-seek with death, which peeped cunningly from every nook and cranny.

Colonel Colville returned viâ Botha’s Pass to De Lange Drift minus many of his gallant men who were wounded in the course of the ordeal, and proceeded to Standerton on the 6th of September.