Chapter 9 - Page 2

Australians, and
several line regiments were moved up on the line from De Aar to
Belmont. It appeared to the public at home that there was the
material for an overwhelming advance; but the ordinary observer, and
even perhaps the military critic, had not yet appreciated how great is
the advantage which is given by modern weapons to the force which acts
upon the defensive. With enormous pains Cronje and De la Rey were
entrenching a most formidable position in front of our advance, with a
confidence, which proved to be justified that it would be on their own
ground and under their own conditions that in this, as in the three
preceding actions, we should engage them.

On the morning of Saturday, December 9th, the British General made an
attempt to find out what lay in front of him amid that semicircle of
forbidding hills. To this end he sent out a reconnaissance in the
early morning, which included G Battery Horse Artillery, the 9th
Lancers, and the ponderous 4-7 naval gun, which, preceded by the
majestic march of thirty-two bullocks and attended by eighty seamen
gunners, creaked forwards over the plain. What was there to shoot at
in those sunlit boulder-strewn hills in front? They lay silent and
untenanted in the glare of the African day. In vain the great gun
exploded its huge shell with its fifty pounds of lyddite over the
ridges, in vain the smaller pieces searched every cleft and hollow
with their shrapnel. No answer came from the far-stretching hills.
Not a flash or twinkle betrayed the fierce bands who lurked among the
boulders. The force returned to camp no wiser than when it left.

There was one sight visible every night to all men which might well
nerve the rescuers in their enterprise. Over the northern horizon,
behind those hills of danger, there quivered up in the darkness one
long, flashing, quivering beam, which swung up and down, and up again
like a seraphic sword-blade. It was Kimberley praying for help,
Kimberley solicitous for news. Anxiously, distractedly, the great De
Beers searchlight dipped and rose. And back across the twenty miles
of darkness, over the hills where Cronje lurked, there came that other
southern column of light which answered, and promised, and soothed.
'Be of good heart, Kimberley. We are here! The Empire is behind us.
We have not forgotten you. It may be days, or it may be weeks, but
rest assured that we are coming.'

About three in the afternoon of Sunday, December 10th, the force which
was intended to clear a path for the army through the lines of
Magersfontein moved out upon what proved to be its desperate
enterprise. The 3rd or Highland Brigade included the Black Watch, the
Seaforths, the Argyll and Sutherlands, and the Highland Light
Infantry. The