e a chance of showing what he can do with larger means
at his disposal. Finding that the enemy was following him in force, he
pushed on the same night for Thabanchu. His horsemen must have covered
between fifty and sixty miles in the twenty-four hours.

Apparently the effect of Pilcher's exploit was to halt the march of
those commandos which had been seen trekking to the north-west, and to
cause them to swing round upon Thabanchu. Broadwood, a young cavalry
commander who had won a name in Egypt, considered that his position was
unnecessarily exposed and fell back upon Bloemfontein. He halted on the
first night near the waterworks, halfway upon his journey.

The Boers are great masters in the ambuscade. Never has any race shown
such aptitude for this form of warfare--a legacy from a long succession
of contests with cunning savages. But never also have they done anything
so clever and so audacious as De Wet's dispositions in this action. One
cannot go over the ground without being amazed at the ingenuity of their
attack, and also at the luck which favoured them, for the trap which
they had laid for others might easily have proved an absolutely fatal
one for themselves.

The position beside the Modder at which the British camped had numerous
broken hills to the north and east of it. A force of Boers, supposed
to number about two thousand men, came down in the night, bringing with
them several heavy guns, and with the early morning opened a brisk fire
upon the camp. The surprise was complete. But the refinement of the Boer
tactics lay in the fact that they had a surprise within a surprise--and
it was the second which was the more deadly.

The force which Broadwood had with him consisted of the 10th Hussars
and the composite regiment, Rimington's Scouts, Roberts's Horse, the
New Zealand and Burmah Mounted Infantry, with Q and U batteries of Horse
Artillery. With such a force, consisting entirely of mounted men, he
could not storm the hills upon which the Boer guns were placed, and his
twelve-pounders were unable to reach the heavier cannon of the enemy.
His best game was obviously to continue his march to Bloemfontein. He
sent on the considerable convoy of wagons and the guns, while he with
the cavalry covered the rear, upon which the long-range pieces of the
enemy kept up the usual well-directed but harmless fire.

Broadwood's retreating column now found itself on a huge plain which
stretches all the way to Bloemfontein