Chapter 36 - Page 2

tendency of which was not entirely in favour of
the British arms, though the weekly export of prisoners reassured all
who noted it as to the sapping and decay of the Boer strength. These
incidents must now be set down in the order of their occurrence, with
their relation to each other so far as it is possible to trace it.

General Louis Botha, with the double intention of making an offensive
move and of distracting the wavering burghers from a close examination
of Lord Kitchener's proclamation, assembled his forces in the second
week of September in the Ermelo district. Thence he moved them rapidly
towards Natal, with the result that the volunteers of that colony had
once more to grasp their rifles and hasten to the frontier. The whole
situation bore for an instant an absurd resemblance to that of two
years before -- Botha playing the part of Joubert, and Lyttelton, who
commanded on the frontier, that of White. It only remained, to make
the parallel complete, that some one should represent Penn Symons, and
this perilous role fell to a gallant officer, Major Gough, commanding
a detached force which thought itself strong enough to hold its own,
and only learned by actual experiment that it was not.

This officer, with a small force consisting of three companies of
Mounted Infantry with two guns of the 69th R.F.A., was operating in
the neighbourhood of Utrecht in the south-eastern corner of the
Transvaal, on the very path along which Botha must descend. On
September 17th he had crossed De Jagers Drift on the Blood River, not
very far from Dundee, when he found himself in touch with the enemy.
His mission was to open a path for an empty convoy returning from
Vryheid, and in order to do so it was necessary that Blood River
Poort, where the Boers were now seen, should be cleared. With
admirable zeal Gough pushed rapidly forward, supported by a force of
350 Johannesburg Mounted Rifles under Stewart. Such a proceeding must
have seemed natural to any British officer at this stage of the war,
when a swift advance was the only chance of closing with the small
bodies of Boers; but it is strange that the Intelligence Department
had not warned the patrols upon the frontier tbat a considerable force
was coming down upon them, and that they should be careful to avoid
action against impossible odds. If Gough had known that Botha's main
commando was coming down upon him, it is inconceivable that he would
have pushed his advance until he could neither extricate his men nor
his guns. A small body of the enemy, said to have been the personal
escort of Louis Botha, led him on, until a large force was able to
ride down upon him from the flank and rear. Surrounded at Scheepers
Nek by many hundreds of riflemen in a difficult country,