ged to cover
Pilcher's right flank, by moving Babington with his mounted brigade
and G. battery westward from Modder camp. His left flank was protected
by the despatch of the Scots Greys from Orange River station to Mark's
Drift, a point close to the junction of the Vaal and Orange rivers. On
the night of the 31st December, Colonel Pilcher halted at Thornhill
farm, eighteen miles north-west of Belmont, and thence moved on the
following morning to Sunnyside, where in a cluster of kopjes a small
laager had been formed by an advance party of the enemy. This commando
(about 180 strong), was surprised, and defeated, with a loss of
fourteen killed and thirty-eight prisoners, after a brief engagement,
in which the Canadian and Queensland troops proved their fitness to
fight side by side with British regulars. On the 2nd January, the
flying column pushing on to Douglas, found the village evacuated by
the enemy. Meanwhile, a strong commando, detached by Cronje, had
eluded the cavalry brigade and crossed the Riet river near
Koodoesberg. Lt.-Colonel Pilcher had already fallen back on Thornhill
on 3rd January, and evading the enemy by a night march, regained
Belmont unmolested. Ninety loyalist refugees from Douglas accompanied
him on his return. Simultaneously with this successful raid, a patrol
of about a company of M.I. under Lieut.-Colonel Alderson had been sent
to Prieska from De Aar, and on the 3rd January exchanged shots at that
place with the enemy across the river, falling back subsequently on De
Aar.

[Footnote 258: Colonel H. S. G. Miles had been in command of
this section up to 26th December, 1899.]

[Sidenote: Wood seizes Zoutpans Drift.]

Lord Methuen now determined, in conjunction with Major-General E.
Wood, to demonstrate to the eastward against the enemy's line of
communication, which was known to run through Jacobsdal, Koffyfontein,
and Fauresmith. On the 7th January Major-General Wood therefore, with
a force of all three arms, seized Zoutpans Drift, a ford across the
Orange river twenty miles above the railway bridge. The ford had been
reconnoitred as early as 13th December. Here General Wood placed a
permanent post on favourable ground on a hill, to protect the drift
from the Free State side, and to command the road leading thence to
Fauresmith. A Boer detachment remained in observation of this post on
the adjacent farm of Wolvekraal, but did not attack. Further to the
north, reconnaissances