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When the news came that the enemy had broken through our lines at Donkerhoek, and that we had to retreat, my brother and I left Grobler's commando. Thinking that the commandos would fall back upon the positions of Belfast, we went to Middelburg to an uncle of ours, the missionary Jan Maré, in order to give our horses a rest. We had lost sight of our comrade Frans.
The other regiments had as many more between them. The next day a continuous fire from all the points held by the Boers showed that large reinforcements had reached them. The Lancashire Brigade, under Colonel Wynne, started at two o'clock that afternoon to carry the kopjes up the Brook Spruit, which ran in the rear of Grobler's Kloof.
They had suffered very heavily in the first attack at Potgieter's Drift, but they now volunteered to take Grobler's Hill; and this, aided with the fire of the artillery and Colonel Wynne's brigade, they did in gallant style, the Boers being evidently nervous that they might find their retreat cut off should the Lancasters advance farther up the spruit.
It was a most formidable position, but as it seemed to bar all progress farther up the line, it was necessary to carry it at all costs. The mounted infantry had, after the skirmish towards Grobler's Kloof, returned to the camp, as the country was so terribly broken as to be altogether impracticable for mounted men.
With the new year his number of prisoners fell, but he had taken so many, and had hustled the remainder to such an extent, that the fight seemed to have gone out of the Boers in this district. On January 1st be presented the first-fruits of the year in the shape of twenty-two of Grobler's burghers. On the 3rd he captured forty-nine, while Wing, co-operating with him, took twenty more.
At two other points the Boer and British forces were in contact during these operations. On August 18th the Boers were forced with some loss out of Hornies Nek, which is ten miles to the north of the capital. On the 22nd a more important skirmish took place at Pienaar's River, in the same direction, between Baden-Powell's men, who had come thither in pursuit of De Wet, and Grobler's band.
Heavy guns could be seen on other hills to the left of Grobler's Kloof; while far away behind Colenso was the crest of Mount Bulwana, from which a cannonade was being directed upon Ladysmith and an occasional white burst of smoke showed that the garrison were replying successfully. On all the lower slopes of the hills were lines, sometimes broken, sometimes connected, rising one above another.
On the right from Grobler's Kloof hill after hill, separated apparently by shallow depressions, rose, and from the higher points occasional flashes of fire burst out as the guns tried their range against those on Mount Alice, whose heights, however, they failed to reach. Spion Kop stood out steep and threatening, its summit being some hundred feet higher than that of Mount Alice.
Its general character has been already mentioned, as well as some particular features Grobler's Kloof, two miles above Colenso, the kopjes behind Fort Wylie commanding the bridge, etc. Between Grobler's and the northerly stretch of the river ran the railroad to Ladysmith, threading a maze of hills which a stay of three months had made intimately familiar to the Boers, both men and officers.
The report of the Commander-in-Chief, dealing almost exclusively with the course of events as they happened, does not particularly describe the remaining features of the field. These must be supplied from other sources. Above west of Fort Wylie, on the north side, the hills recede somewhat from the river and rise to one of the crests mentioned by Buller, known as Grobler's Kloof.
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