ict on the situation.

[Page Heading: THE ROAD BLOCKED]

At 9.30 on February 15 the column set out on the last stage of their
journey. French, with the idea of putting the enemy off the track, led
his men towards Bloemfontein. His idea was eventually to dash straight
for Kimberley with his whole division, hemming the enemy's rear and
flank in at Magersfontein, where Methuen's force could hold him in
front. Scarcely had the advance begun, however, when a murderous fire
broke out from the river on the south-west, followed almost
instantaneously by a cross fire from a line of kopjes on the
north-west. The road to Bloemfontein was blocked; and the road to
Kimberley was exposed to a cross fire from the enemy's two positions.
This was checkmate with a vengeance. It was thought that some two
thousand Boers held the kopjes ahead of French. At once he ordered the
guns into position and boldly replied to the enemy's fire. The column
was now nearing a plain several miles in width, guarded on one side by
a ridge running from north to south, and on the other by a hill. The
Boers held both hill and ridge in force. So that whatever the guns
might do, the position was difficult--if not impossible. By all
military rules French was "hemmed in." To a lesser man retreat would
have seemed inevitable, though disastrous. Once again it was French
_v._ The Impossible. A member of his staff relates how, sweeping the
horizon with his glass, while riderless horses from the guns galloped
past, he muttered, squaring the pugnacious jaw, "They are over here to
stop us from Bloemfontein and they are there to stop us from
Kimberley--we have got to break through." In an instant his decision
was taken. He would attempt the impossible--a direct cavalry charge in
the teeth of the enemy's fire.

[Page Heading: A TERRIFIC CHARGE]

He immediately ordered Gordon to charge the right front. The members
of his Staff expected that the General would now take up a position of
security in the rear of the column, before the grim work began. But he
kept his place in the van with his Staff. His officers were
practically certain that not only the first, but several of the
leading squadrons would be utterly wiped out. There appeared to be
nothing in heaven or earth which could prevent huge losses. Gordon led
his men--the Ninth and Sixteenth Lancers--in superb style. Despite the
pitiable condition of the horses, it was a charge worthy of the
British Army. A strong fire