On the 23rd General Ian Hamilton took possession of Doornkraal (while General Stephenson’s Brigade occupied Elands River), and proceeded due north of Bronkhers Spruit, thus so completely threatening the enemy’s line of retreat that they were forced to abandon the strong position which they had hitherto been holding in face of General Pole-Carew’s Division. It was possible now to make an appreciable advance to the east. The right was protected by the 1st and 4th Brigades of Cavalry (French) and Hutton’s Mounted Infantry, the former crossing to east of Wilge River. There they came upon a huge body of the enemy, and succeeded in driving them still farther back, and in taking many prisoners. One officer, Lieutenant Ebsworth, 1st Australian Horse, was mortally wounded during the encounter. The Boers, seeing the trend of affairs, quickly scudded towards Lydenburg, whither Mr. Kruger was said to be travelling. A certain number of the burly gang remained ensconced in the bush veldt, where they hoped a few bridges might yet be destroyable, and unguarded gaps of the line would offer invitation for the exercise of mischievous ingenuity. Neither their position nor that of their hunters was to be envied, for the rainy season had set in with roar and rampage, the wind, blowing through the poorts that clave the ridges with which the landscape was studded, roared like a giant through a fog-horn. At night the freezing atmosphere nipped nose, toes, and eyelids, rain deluged, and converted the whole surroundings into a vast universe of slime, till the duties of the camp had to be executed in a series of ploughings and plungings which were exhausting to man and beast.
On the 24th the Boers engaged French’s Cavalry and Hutton’s Mounted Infantry about six miles south of Balmoral. Alderson’s Mounted Infantry attacked their right, while French made a wide turning movement to their left, which proved entirely discomfiting, for the enemy rapidly “broke and fled,” followed by both forces. One officer, Lieutenant Wilson of the Imperial Yeomanry, was wounded.
On the 25th Generals French and Hutton continued their pursuit of the Dutchmen, and the former, having crossed Olifant’s River, could view, from the east bank, the enemy about seven miles off retiring in disorder towards Middelburg. Violent efforts were made to be even with them, but morass and sludge and temperature were in favour of the Boers. Finally the pursuit had to be abandoned. Rain descended in torrents; the east wind blustered, and the Mounted Infantry spent an ever-memorable night of anguish on the west of the river where they bivouacked. One man died of exposure, while the mules and oxen, uttering sounds that added horror to the already horrific night, suffered so exceedingly that many were dead by the dawn.
Owing to the exertions of the right and left wings of the advance, the main army, without seeing a vestige of the Dutchmen, marched to Balmoral where Generals Pole-Carew and Ian Hamilton concentrated, while General French untiringly scoured more distant tracks towards the east.
By the 28th the Cavalry commander, having by his wide turning movement driven the Dutchmen from the Wilge River beyond Middelburg, occupied the latter place. He was now eighty miles east of Pretoria and within sixty of Machadodorp, whither the Boers were trekking. Reinforced by Hutton’s Mounted Infantry and two regiments of Infantry, General French held the line of the Klein Olifant’s River. General Pole-Carew with the Guards Brigade followed to Brug Spruit, twenty miles to west of Middelburg, but Lord Roberts himself returned to Pretoria. The closing month found the British firmly posted some ten miles west of Machadodorp, where they were temporarily checked by the enemy, while General Ian Hamilton’s column, “looking very fit and workmanlike,” were once more moved back to Pretoria.
PROTECTING THE KRUGERSDORP-POTCHEFSTROOM RAILROAD[8]
Lord Methuen continued his task of diligently patrolling the district from Heilbron to Kroonstad, and succeeded in capturing at Paardekraal, half-way between the two places, the commandant of De Wet’s Scouts, and also Andries Wessels, a person of some magnitude in relation to the Africander Bond.
Just before the tragic 11th of July, General Smith-Dorrien sent out orders that the 19th Brigade, consisting of the Shropshire Light Infantry, Gordon Highlanders, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, and the Royal Canadians, were to proceed by train to Krugersdorp, and marching northwards were to co-operate with the Scots Greys, who were supposed to be marching, on the said 11th of July, to meet them. On this day, the Gordon Highlanders moved out in skirmishing order, protected on their flanks by the Scottish Yeomanry under Sir James Miller, and two guns under Lieutenant Turner, 78th Battery Royal Field Artillery. At Dolverkranz they came in for a heavy fire from the two long low hills where the enemy had posted themselves, to which a response was made by the British guns, which had galloped up between the kopjes. Promptly the Highlanders made for a kopje on the left which the Dutchmen naturally coveted, and these scurried from their main position and poured vengeance on the advance. Then, nearer approaching, they attacked the British guns and their gunners, and the tornado on both sides was waxing both warm and exhilarating when from the rear, to the dismay and horror of all, there opened a volcano—spouts of death within 200 yards, bowling over the horse of the brigade major, and trying to make matchwood of ambulance waggons and baggage guard. Very soon fifteen out of seventeen British gunners were hit, and at last Lieutenant Turner was seen serving his own gun till wounded in three places. In the midst of the rampage, horror followed horror. Just as the troops, thinking themselves surrounded, were preparing to rush and capture the ridges of the main position, which might shortly be remanned by the enemy, Lord Roberts sent a message reporting the discomfiture of the Scots Greys at Nitral’s Nek, and commanding the cancelling of operations! Here was a situation! Colonel MacBean hesitated. Was he to retire his Gordons and leave the guns in the enemy’s hands? Never! He called for volunteers to bring in the pieces, and his Scotsmen leapt to the word. All could not be accepted—too large a number must not be risked. Captains Gordon, Younger, and Allen, leading a band of ten men, pushed forward in a blizzard from the Mausers of the foe. Captain Younger, hit in three places, dropped, the others gloriously struggled on, but in vain, to rescue the prized weapons of war. Still undaunted, the Colonel asked permission to effect his object after dark, and biding his time, held his fire-beaten ground till, in the gloom of the evening, he could bring his team alongside of the guns and drag them off into a place of safety. This was eventually accomplished. Meanwhile Captain Younger—helpless, dying—had been borne out of the fray on the back of a glorious fellow, M’Kay by name, who was no new hand at deeds of valour, and had repeatedly faced death in order to tend the suffering. Among others who were wounded was Captain Higginson, 2nd Shropshire Light Infantry.
This hard day’s work, the day of many heroes, set a brilliant seal on the wonderful record of the 19th Brigade, which had been engaged in nearly all the momentous actions in the Free State and Transvaal. Since its formation on 12th of February it had marched 620 miles, often on half rations and seldom on full. It had taken part in the capture of ten towns, fought in ten general actions, and on twenty-seven other occasions. Within a period of thirty days it had fought twenty-one times and marched 327 miles. The casualties had been between four and five hundred, the defeats nil!
The enemy continued active. Some of them, flitting about in the neighbourhood of the line between Potchefstroom and Krugersdorp, succeeded, on the 19th, in wrecking a train near Bank Station which was carrying two officers and twenty-one sick men to the latter place. The officers were Lieutenant Harris, Welsh Fusiliers, and Lieutenant French-Brewster, Royal Fusiliers. Luckily no one was injured, for most of the men were fairly convalescent.