On March 5th General Gatacre found that the Boers were retreating in front of him—­in response, no doubt, to messages similar to those which had already been received at Colesberg.  Moving forward he occupied the position which had confronted him so long.  Thence, having spent some days in drawing in his scattered detachments and in mending the railway, he pushed forward on March 12th to Burghersdorp, and thence on the 13th to Olive Siding, to the south of the Bethulie Bridge.

There are two bridges which span the broad muddy Orange River, thick with the washings of the Basutoland mountains.  One of these is the magnificent high railway bridge, already blown to ruins by the retreating Boers.  Dead men or shattered horses do not give a more vivid impression of the unrelenting brutality of war than the sight of a structure, so graceful and so essential, blown into a huge heap of twisted girders and broken piers.  Half a mile to the west is the road bridge, broad and old-fashioned.  The only hope of preserving some mode of crossing the difficult river lay in the chance that the troops might anticipate the Boers who were about to destroy this bridge.

In this they were singularly favoured by fortune.  On the arrival of a small party of scouts and of the Cape Police under Major Nolan-Neylan at the end of the bridge it was found that all was ready to blow it up, the mine sunk, the detonator fixed, and the wire laid.  Only the connection between the wire and the charge had not been made.  To make sure, the Boers had also laid several boxes of dynamite under the last span, in case the mine should fail in its effect.  The advance guard of the Police, only six in number, with Nolan-Neylan at their head, threw themselves into a building which commanded the approaches of the bridge, and this handful of men opened so spirited and well-aimed a fire that the Boers were unable to approach it.  As fresh scouts and policemen came up they were thrown into the firing line, and for a whole long day they kept the destroyers from the bridge.  Had the enemy known how weak they were and how far from supports, they could have easily destroyed them, but the game of bluff was admirably played, and a fire kept up which held the enemy to their rifle pits.

The Boers were in a trench commanding the bridge, and their brisk fire made it impossible to cross.  On the other hand, our rifle fire commanded the mine and prevented any one from exploding it.  But at the approach of darkness it was certain that this would be done.  The situation was saved by the gallantry of young Popham of the Derbyshires, who crept across with two men and removed the detonators.  There still remained the dynamite under the further span, and this also they removed, carrying it off across the bridge under a heavy fire.  The work was made absolutely complete a little later by the exploit of Captain Grant of the Sappers, who drew the charges from the holes in which they had been sunk, and dropped