The army had been reinforced the night before by the welcome addition of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, which made up for the losses of the week.  It was a cloudless morning, and a dazzling sun rose in a deep blue sky.  The men, though hungry, marched cheerily, the reek of their tobacco-pipes floating up from their ranks.  It cheered them to see that the murderous kopjes had, for the time, been left behind, and that the great plain inclined slightly downwards to where a line of green showed the course of the river.  On the further bank were a few scattered buildings, with one considerable hotel, used as a week-end resort by the businessmen of Kimberley.  It lay now calm and innocent, with its open windows looking out upon a smiling garden; but death lurked at the windows and death in the garden, and the little dark man who stood by the door, peering through his glass at the approaching column, was the minister of death, the dangerous Cronje.  In consultation with him was one who was to prove even more formidable, and for a longer time.  Semitic in face, high-nosed, bushy-bearded, and eagle-eyed, with skin burned brown by a life of the veld—­it was De la Rey, one of the trio of fighting chiefs whose name will always be associated with the gallant resistance of the Boers.  He was there as adviser, but Cronje was in supreme command.

His dispositions had been both masterly and original.  Contrary to the usual military practice in the defence of rivers, he had concealed his men upon both banks, placing, as it is stated, those in whose staunchness he had least confidence upon the British side of the river, so that they could only retreat under the rifles of their inexorable companions.  The trenches had been so dug with such a regard for the slopes of the ground that in some places a triple line of fire was secured.  His artillery, consisting of several heavy pieces and a number of machine guns (including one of the diabolical ’pompoms’), was cleverly placed upon the further side of the stream, and was not only provided with shelter pits but had rows of reserve pits, so that the guns could be readily shifted when their range was found.  Rows of trenches, a broadish river, fresh rows of trenches, fortified houses, and a good artillery well worked and well placed, it was a serious task which lay in front of the gallant little army.  The whole position covered between four and five miles.

An obvious question must here occur to the mind of every non-military reader—­Why should this position be attacked at all?  Why should we not cross higher up where there were no such formidable obstacles?’ The answer, so far as one can answer it, must be that so little was known of the dispositions of our enemy that we were hopelessly involved in the action before we knew of it, and that then it was more dangerous to extricate the army than to push the attack.  A retirement over that open plain at a range of under a thousand yards would have been a dangerous and disastrous movement.  Having once got there, it was wisest and best to see it through.