antry 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
that 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, there was no alternative but a surrender, and so sharp and
sudden was the Boer advance that the whole action was over in a very
short time. The new tactics of the Boers, already used at Vlakfontein,
and afterwards to be successful at Brakenlaagte and at Tweebosch, were
put in force. A large body of mounted men, galloping swiftly in open
order and firing from the saddle, rode into and over the British. Such
temerity should in theory have met with severe punishment, but as a
matter of fact the losses of the enemy seem to have been very small. The
soldiers were not able to return an effective fire from their horses,
and had no time to dismount. The sights and breech-blocks of the two
guns are said to have been destroyed, but the former statement seems
more credible than the latter. A Colt gun was also captured. Of the
small force twenty were killed, forty wounded, and over two hundred
taken. Stewart's force was able to extricate itself with some
difficulty, and to fall back on the Drift.