“Please send following message to Colonial troops employed in action at Sunnyside: ‘His Excellency Sir Alfred Milner sends you his heartiest congratulations on your success, and hopes it is only the forerunner of many more. While regretting the loss of some of your brave comrades, he feels sure that your friends in the colonies over the sea will feel proud of the success of their representatives, as he himself does.’”
From Sir Redvers Buller the following was received:—
“General Buller desires that his congratulations be conveyed to the Colonial troops on their action at Sunnyside.”
From the Governor, Queensland, came:—
“Request you will be good enough to convey to Queensland Mounted Infantry hearty congratulations on gallant conduct at Sunnyside and sympathy in loss of life. Second contingent embarks for South Africa next week.”
ACTIVITIES AND SURPRISES
More useful work, which had a direct bearing on the events of the future, took place during Colonel Pilcher’s three weeks’ stay at Belmont. Soon after the Douglas expedition another excursion was devised. More Canadians were to be employed. The Queenslanders were to send such men as they could mount, their animals being, many of them, still hors de combat from the sea trip, and the guns and infantry were to go as a matter of course. A dive into the enemy’s country was projected—one of the first deliberate incursions upon the Southern Dutch Republic. These incursions were of immense value, and served in reality as pilotage for the gigantic military engine that was shortly to sweep the way from the Cape to Bloemfontein.
At six o’clock in the morning of Tuesday, January 9, the column started. It was composed as follows:—
Royal Horse Artillery—Two guns, 45 men, 51 horses. Queensland Mounted Infantry—Two Maxims, 116 men, 106 horses. Royal Munster Fusiliers Mounted Infantry—15 men, 15 horses. Royal Canadian Regiment—Two Maxims, 293 men, 2 horses. New South Wales Army Medical Corps—Two ambulances, 18 men, 14 horses. Total—487 men, 188 horses.
The officers who were engaged in the flying column were:—