s of flame by night showed the
handiwork of the enemy. Hamilton and French, moving upon the left flank,
found Boers thick upon the hills, but cleared them off in a well-managed
skirmish which cost us a dozen casualties. On May 29th, pushing swiftly
along, French found the enemy posted very strongly with several guns at
Doornkop, a point west of Klip River Berg. The cavalry leader had with
him at this stage three horse batteries, four pom-poms, and 3000 mounted
men. The position being too strong for him to force, Hamilton's infantry
(19th and 21st Brigades) were called up, and the Boers were driven out.
That splendid corps, the Gordons, lost nearly a hundred men in their
advance over the open, and the C.I.V.s on the other flank fought like
a regiment of veterans. There had been an inclination to smile at these
citizen soldiers when they first came out, but no one smiled now save
the General who felt that he had them at his back. Hamilton's attack
was assisted by the menace rather than the pressure of French's turning
movement on the Boer right, but the actual advance was as purely frontal
as any of those which had been carried through at the beginning of the
war. The open formation of the troops, the powerful artillery behind
them, and perhaps also the lowered morale of the enemy combined to
make such a movement less dangerous than of old. In any case it was
inevitable, as the state of Hamilton's commisariat rendered it necessary
that at all hazards he should force his way through.

Whilst this action of Doornkop was fought by the British left flank,
Henry's mounted infantry in the centre moved straight upon the important
junction of Germiston, which lies amid the huge white heaps of tailings
from the mines. At this point, or near it, the lines from Johannesburg
and from Natal join the line to Pretoria. Colonel Henry's advance was
an extremely daring one, for the infantry were some distance behind; but
after an irregular scrambling skirmish, in which the Boer snipers had to
be driven off the mine heaps and from among the houses, the 8th mounted
infantry got their grip of the railway and held it. The exploit was a
very fine one, and stands out the more brilliantly as the conduct of the
campaign cannot be said to afford many examples of that well-considered
audacity which deliberately runs the risk of the minor loss for the sake
of the greater gain. Henry was much assisted by J battery R.H.A., which
was handled with energy