al Kitchener determined to intercept this convoy, and for this
reason the following force under his personal command, viz. two
squadrons 19th Hussars, 5th and 6th West Australians, and four companies
of the Devonshire Regiment under Captain Jacson, set out the same
evening. The mounted troops of Colville's column co-operated.
Trichardtsfontein was reached an hour before dawn, when the place was
found deserted. A halt was made there for the day, when Colville's
column left.

[Illustration: Dawn--After a Night March, Trichardtsfontein]

At nightfall several Boers were seen on the hills in the vicinity, and
there was every reason to suppose that a night attack was contemplated
by them. Preparations were made accordingly, but the night was passed
quietly.

At dawn the return march was commenced. The Boers attacked the
rear-guard before it left camp and before it was formed up, and engaged
it the whole way back to Sondagskraal, until finally they came under
fire of the 5-inch gun in position in that camp.

During the preceding thirty-one hours the four companies of the Regiment
had marched forty-two miles.

Whilst this enterprise was being undertaken the remainder of the
battalion, with the transport of the column, had remained at
Sondagskraal under Colonel Davies.

On the 7th the force marched to Goedehoop, and proceeding without
incident on the 8th to Brakfontein, on the 9th to Strypan, reached
Springs on the 10th. The last two marches were long and tiring, and what
little strength was left in the oxen was exhausted. The men likewise
required a rest and a refit after their long trek from Lydenburg, which
had extended through Secoconi's country in the Northern Transvaal, down
south to Middleburg, thence east to the Swazi border and over the
Eastern Transvaal, reaching as far south as Bethel, to Springs, near
Johannesburg. Eighty per cent of the men had on arrival at Springs
neither shirts nor socks, and the bitter cold of the high veldt pierced
keenly through the thin Indian khaki drill. The column required
generally doing up before again "taking the floor." It was expected by
all that the infantry at least would be relieved by a fresh battalion.

But it was not to be, for General Walter Kitchener insisted on the
Devons accompanying him, and his column set out again from Springs on
the 14th on a trek to the north, and without much fighting or incident
reached Middleburg on July 22nd. The country through which the co