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Methuen could not outflank, could not go round, was not strong enough to leave his lines of communication, and had practically no cavalry. He had to go straight on. Belmont, Graspan, and Modder were turnpike gates. The toll was heavy, but there was no choice but to pay. But what was the reason of this latest? We had them here safely bottled up. We have them still. It is only a question of days.
That was when the Union Jack was threatened, when British regiments were melting away before the rifles of a peasant people at Magersfontein, Colenso and Graspan, when Ladysmith was being besieged, and Downing Street trembled for the safety of the empire.
In it he fought four actions: at Belmont, November 23; at Graspan on the 25th; at Modder River on the 28th; and finally at Magersfontein, December 11. These places are distant from Orange River, approximately, 18, 28, and 45 miles; Magersfontein being some three miles beyond the Modder.
Of the general demoralisation here is the evidence of a witness in that very action at Graspan on June 6, which has been made so much of by the slanderers of our Army: No. 4703 Lance-Corporal James Hanshaw, 2nd Batt. Bedfordshire Regiment, being duly sworn, states: 'At Graspan on June 6, 1901, I was present when we were attacked by the Boers, having previously captured a convoy from them.
The misrepresentation was to the effect that at the battle of Modder River the house in question was occupied by a number of Boer wounded from Belmont and Graspan in charge of several attendants.
There is an intensely strong feeling amongst colonial Englishmen as well as Dutchmen much more intense than anything we feel at home against the bringing of natives into a quarrel between white men. The train soon traverses the distance between Belmont and Graspan. None can wish to linger on this journey, for the surrounding region is dreary and forbidding.
Next day the British troops took up a position north of the river. So far, the Kimberley relief force had done its work well. The obstacles in its way at Belmont, Graspan, and Modder River had been thrust aside, and it was now within two easy marches of its destination.
At Omdurman our shells played tremendous havoc with the dense masses of the enemy; but here the Dervishes advanced to the attack in broad daylight and over a flat plain absolutely devoid of cover, and with its "ranges" well known and marked out beforehand. In one of our southward journeys with a load of wounded men we passed, a little below Graspan, through the midst of a swarm of locusts.
'I don't know, but he gave them hell at Belmont and at Graspan, and they say they are fighting again to-day at Modder River. Major Erasmus is very down-hearted about it. But the ordinary burghers hear nothing but lies; all lies, I tell you.
As we came one after another to the lines of hills at Belmont and Graspan they pointed and crowded to the windows, and papa began to explain that the great fights had been here, and to tell all about them, quite wrong. The hills look peaceful enough now. The children press their noses and little india-rubber fingers against the glass, and chatter and laugh and bob up and down
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