Preparations for it had begun some time before, when Tucker's Division had captured Karee siding, some twenty miles north of the town; but not without considerable loss, for, as upon previous occasions, the infantry attacked before the cavalry had completed their turning movement. But on the 3rd of May all was ready for the advance. The troops were glad indeed, for while they were stationed at Bloemfontein, a terrible foe had made its appearance among them. Enteric fever had broken out, the hospitals were filled to overflowing with sick men, and the accommodation was altogether insufficient to meet the emergency. For this no one could be blamed. The medical staff that had accompanied the movement from the Modder River was sufficient to cope with and care for any amount of wounded that were likely to be thrown on to their hands; but it was not capable of meeting such an emergency, even with the assistance of the hospitals that had been furnished and sent out by private subscription from home. All that could be done was done; but the first necessity was to provide for the wants of the fighting men, to accumulate the stores on which they would have to depend during their advance; and although many Red Cross trains came up, there was, for a considerable time, a grievous deficiency of hospital accommodation and hospital necessaries, doctors, and nurses.
In one hospital, where there were five hundred beds, there were seventeen hundred sick. Upwards of a thousand men died, but there were some seven thousand cases, and those who recovered were so debilitated by the effects of the disease that they were unfit for further service, and had to be sent down to the Cape or Port Elizabeth, and then to England. The seeds of this terrible scourge had been sown by the polluted waters drunk at Paardeberg. By some grievous oversight the War Office had neglected the advice of those who urged upon it the necessity of sending out a special corps to attend to sanitary points. Had this recommendation been attended to, the lives of some four thousand or five thousand men, and of over twenty thousand sent home incapacitated for work, would have been saved.
Gatacre's force were able after De Wet's departure to move up to the Orange River, repairing the railway as they advanced. On arriving at Bethulie Bridge, the general found that, although that magnificent railway viaduct had been destroyed, the road bridge was still intact. It was known, however, to be mined, and there was a strong Boer force on the other side ready to blow it up the instant the British ventured upon it. It was saved, however, by the daring action of Lieutenant Popham, of the Derbyshire Regiment, and of Captain Grant, of the Sappers. The former, with two men, crept along the bridge at night and removed the detonators, took away the dynamite from under the farther span, and carried it off under a heavy fire, opened by the Boers as soon as they found that the mines were being tampered with. But there still remained heavy charges in the piers, and although the Boers could not explode these in the ordinary way, as they were commanded by our rifle-fire, they might have effected it by directing a shell-fire against them. Captain Grant, therefore, completed Popham's work by going across, removing the charges, and dropping them into the river. As the reconstruction of the railway-bridge was a work that would occupy months rather than weeks, the preservation of the road-bridge was a matter of vital importance. Gatacre's force marched across it after the enemy had been shelled out from their position on the other side, and advanced along the line of railway. The cavalry pushed forward to Springfontein, and there met two battalions of Guards sent down by train from Bloemfontein—and thus the whole line of railway was in our possession.
Clements, advancing from Colesberg, had thrown a pontoon bridge across the river close to the ruined Norval's Pont, and thus, when a temporary deviation of the line had been effected, this branch of the railway was also available. Farther to the east, General Brabant, with a force of Colonial Volunteers, the Royal Scots, and three guns of field-artillery, advanced to Dordrecht, won a victory there, and pushed on so rapidly towards Aliwal, that he occupied the bridge there before it could be blown up, and then proceeded to stamp out the rebellion in that part of Cape Colony. To the east of the line of railway, from Bethulie to Bloemfontein, strong bodies of the enemy continued to wander about doing considerable damage. But Lord Roberts was not to be tempted to move any considerable forces to suppress them. His great object was to march to Pretoria, his great work to collect stores that would enable him to do so, and to do this he contented himself with holding fast to the line of railway. Rails were often removed and culverts blown up, but a few hours' work always sufficed to repair the damage.
Two serious reverses, however, happened. A cavalry force had been threatened by a strong Boer commando at the water-works that supplied Bloemfontein. They were twenty-four miles from the town. The Boers opened fire with heavy guns from a hill that commanded the British position. Colonel Broadwood, who was in command, could not, with a force composed only of mounted men, attempt to storm the hill, and as the guns of the two batteries of horse-artillery with him were altogether inferior to those of the Boers, he decided to retire upon Bloemfontein. He knew that a messenger he had sent the night before to ask for reinforcements had arrived there, and he received a reply that Colvile's Division would be sent out before daybreak to meet him. Believing, therefore, that there was no danger in front, he remained at the rear of the column, which had been shelled by the enemy.
The waggons were at the head of the retiring column, which, as it crossed the plain, had to go through a deep donga. Here the Boers were in hiding. Each waggon as it descended was silently seized. A Boer took the place of the driver, and it ascended the opposite side without any alarm being given. So the whole convoy would have fallen into the hands of the hidden enemy had not one of the troopers with it drawn his pistol and fired. A volley of shots rang out, and the brave fellow paid for his courage with his life. The nine waggons which had not reached the donga halted. The two batteries were close behind them, and, knowing further concealment to be useless, the Boers sprang to their feet and opened a terrible fire on them. Men and horses went down in numbers. The confusion was terrible. The men struggled to get the fallen horses out of the traces, but were mown down by the continuous rain of bullets. The rearmost gun of the leading battery alone was able to get off, and galloped furiously back. Two guns of the second battery were overturned by the struggling horses and had to be abandoned. As soon as the others reached a distance of seven or eight hundred yards from the edge of the donga, they turned and opened fire.
Roberts's Horse had been abreast of the guns and suffered heavily also; but they, the New Zealanders, and the Burmese Horse dismounted when they had retired a sufficient distance, and, throwing themselves down, returned the fire of the Boers. Parties of cavalry were sent off to discover some other point at which the donga could be crossed, and one was found two miles to the south by an officer of Rimington's Scouts, and towards this the force moved off. The artillery nobly covered the retreat. But they had suffered terribly. Two of the guns had but two men left to work them, and another was loaded and fired by an officer single-handed; and when at last the order came to fall back, but ten men remained on their legs, and several of these were wounded. The Colonial corps covered the withdrawal by turns, and in two hours the rear of the column had crossed the donga. Some thirty officers and three hundred men were killed, wounded, or missing. A hundred waggons, with seven guns, were lost. Only one officer and the sergeant-major of the leading battery escaped.
The other disaster, which was equally serious, occurred four days later, when a detachment of five companies of infantry posted at Reddersburg were surrounded on their march from an advanced position, and took post on a kopje. For twenty-four hours they defended themselves gallantly. But they were without water, the hoped-for relief did not arrive, and they surrendered the next morning.