were in need of a rest. Nearly four
hundred prisoners had been taken from the most warlike portion of
the Transvaal in ten days by one energetic commander, with a list of
twenty-five casualties to ourselves. The thanks of the Secretary of War
were specially sent to him for his brilliant work. From then until
the end of the year 1901, numbers of smaller captures continued to
be reported from the same region, where Plumer, Spens, Mackenzie,
Rawlinson, and others were working. On the other hand there was one
small setback which occurred to a body of two hundred Mounted Infantry
under Major Bridgford, who had been detached from Spens's column to
search some farmhouses at a place called Holland, to the south of
Ermelo. The expedition set forth upon the night of December 19th, and
next morning surrounded and examined the farms.

The British force became divided in doing this work, and were suddenly
attacked by several hundred of Britz's commando, who came to close
quarters through their khaki dress, which enabled them to pass as
Plumer's vanguard. The brunt of the fight fell upon an outlying body of
fifty men, nearly all of whom were killed, wounded or taken. A second
body of fifty men were overpowered in the same way, after a creditable
defence. Fifteen of the British were killed and thirty wounded, while
Bridgford the commander was also taken. Spens came up shortly afterwards
with the column, and the Boers were driven off. There seems every reason
to think that upon this occasion the plans of the British had leaked
out, and that a deliberate ambush had been laid for them round the
farms, but in such operations these are chances against which it is not
always possible to guard. Considering the number of the Boers, and the
cleverness of their dispositions, the British were fortunate in being
able to extricate their force without greater loss, a feat which was
largely due to the leading of Lieutenant Sterling.

Leaving the Eastern Transvaal, the narrative must now return to several
incidents of importance which had occurred at various points of the seat
of war during the latter months of 1901.

On September 19th, two days after Gough's disaster, a misfortune
occurred near Bloemfontein by which two guns and a hundred and forty men
fell temporarily into the hands of the enemy. These guns, belonging to
U battery, were moving south under an escort of Mounted Infantry, from
that very Sanna's Post which had been so fatal to the sa