Vaal River Deviation Bridge at Vereeniging, nearly completed. (Photo by W. H. Gill, London.)
It was an impressive spectacle; one ever to be remembered. From afternoon till night, troops—great, brawny, bronzed, and workmanlike Britons—came clanking in procession through the town, while from balconies and windows banners and flags were waved, and gay ladies, many of them Englishwomen, wild with excitement and enthusiasm, threw down flowers and sweets and cigarettes to give vent to their unrestrained joy. Far into the evening the stream of kharki continued ceaselessly to flow under the magnesian rays of the electric lights till the infantry had passed to their camp, three miles to the north, and Lord Roberts had settled himself at Orange Grove.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] See vol. iv. p. 41.
CHAPTER VII
GENERAL RUNDLE’S MARCH TO SENEKAL
While Lord Roberts was moving from Bloemfontein, co-operative action was being taken elsewhere. On the 2nd of May the Boers evacuated Thabanchu and trekked towards the north, and on the following day General French, leaving General Rundle in command, started to join Lord Roberts’s main scheme. Soon after General Brabant joined General Rundle’s force.
On the 4th, General Rundle moved forward from Thabanchu, attacked the enemy, captured their positions, and headed them eastward. There was little hard fighting, the General’s movements being mostly carried out with so much celerity, and strategical and tactical skill, that the enemy, seeing British forces apparently in strength everywhere, judged it advisable to move from post to post rather than run the risk of being mopped up.
On Friday, the 11th of May, Colonel Grenfell, with the 2nd Battalion of Brabant’s Horse, attacked the Boers at Ropin’s Kop, but was overpowered by the enemy and forced to retire, with several wounded. On the following day, Saturday, he, however, drove the Boers out of their position, and captured Newberry Mills at Leeuw River, thus depriving the Dutchmen of an immense store of flour and grain which it had been their ambition to seize. This smart piece of work was accomplished almost without casualties. While these operations had been going forward, some 500 of the Yeomanry had occupied the northern slopes of Thaba Patacka, a position whence they hoped to attack the Boers who might be slinking off in the direction of Basutoland. General Boyes, on the west, was equally active, to the dismay of the Boers, who, owing to General Rundle’s clever strategy, imagined the British held a front of over twenty miles.