m. Field artillery, along with the
naval guns, supported his advance. While this double fire was
distracting the Boers, French stormed their laager. The enemy fled,
leaving their camp and all its equipments to French. This brilliant
little success was practically a cavalry exploit, and it was typical
of much that was to follow.

It now became obvious that Ladysmith was becoming completely invested.
The Boer lines which had been three miles from the town were creeping
nearer. Assuredly the belligerent town was no place for a cavalry
officer.

[Page Heading: THE ESCAPE]

French determined to leave Ladysmith. It would not be easy to break
through the lines of the net that was closing round the city. Whether
or no the railway was still open was uncertain. When French's
aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Milbanke, now Sir John Milbanke, V.C., asked
the station-master whether a special train could get through to
Pietermaritzburg, that worthy indignantly scorned the idea. With the
Boers at Colenso it would certainly be madness--a fool's errand.
Milbanke, however, used persuasions which resulted in an effort being
made to run the gauntlet. That evening an engine and a few carriages
duly drew up at the station. Very soon French's staff was aboard. As
the train was about to start a short and agile elderly officer might
have been seen to dash across the platform into the last carriage,
where he ensconced himself beneath a seat lest the train be stopped
and searched. Very soon bullets were rattling through the carriage
windows, and it was an excessively uncomfortable journey that the
British General and his staff endured. But they were at last free to
carry out fresh services for their country. Five months were to pass
before another train crossed these metals.

CHAPTER VI

THE CAMPAIGN ROUND COLESBERG

The Fog of War--A Perilous Situation--Damming "The Flowing
Tide"--Shows His Genius as a Commander--A Campaign in
Miniature--Hoisting Guns on Hilltops--The Fifty-mile
Front--Saving the Situation.

So far French had justified the tradition which called him lucky. Any
competent and experienced general _might_, with luck, have won the
battle of Elandslaagte. That victory did not mark French out as a
commander of genius. But what followed in the campaign round Colesberg
did.

It is very much to be regretted that the circumstances of the case
forced this campaign to be fought amid an unusually dense variety of
"