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The English, I expected, would retreat to Bloemfontein, and then from my position in Koorn Spruit I should be able to decimate them as they passed that ravine. I had sent a large number of burghers with the four generals so that our force might be sufficiently strong to turn General Broadwood, in case he should hear that there was fighting at Sanna's Post and come up to reinforce the garrison.
Nothing daunted by his failure, Olivier turned upon the town of Winburg and attempted to regain it, but was defeated again and scattered, he and his three sons being taken. The result was due to the gallantry and craft of a handful of the Queenstown Volunteers, who laid an ambuscade in a donga, and disarmed the Boers as they passed, after the pattern of Sanna's Post.
Brauer, and after a few years his plump dark little dumpling of a Cousin Linda came from Bremen to teach music in the Western city, and to adore clever Cousin Heinrich, and then it was time to hunt for the sunny kitchen and buy the shining coffee-pot and change little Sanna's name to Linchen. For Susan was engaged to Peter Coleman!
Their assailants seem to have been detached from De Wet's force in the north, and contained among them many of the victors of Sanna's Post. The attack began at 11 A.M. of April 3rd, and all day the men lay among the stones, subjected to the pelt of shell and bullet. The cover was good, however, and the casualties were not heavy. The total losses were under fifty killed and wounded.
In the course of that day I received a number of reports. I was informed that General Olivier was driving General Broadwood from Ladybrand towards Thaba'Nchu. A little later I heard from General Froneman and Commandant Fourie how matters stood at Sanna's Post. I had disclosed my plan to them, and sent them out to reconnoitre.
He therefore started off in that direction and continued until he discovered his mistake. Then he turned aside and came in contact with General Fourie. Our men held him back for a few hours, and lost two men, very badly wounded in the engagement. Whilst this was occurring I had reached the forts between Thaba'Nchu and Sanna's Post.
The owner of the sheep and of the cattle, they said, was with General Broadwood, whose troops had just arrived at Sanna's Post. The light grew brighter, and there, three thousand paces from us, was Broadwood's huge force. I had only three hundred and fifty men with me; the other generals, to the east of the Modder River, had not more than eleven hundred and fifty between them.
She always had a presentiment when the children were coming, looked out of the windows, and recognized them from afar, whenever Sanna's red kerchief shone brightly in the sun. She led the children through the laundry and the press into the living-room and had them sit down, not letting them take off their neckcloths or coats lest they should catch cold, and then kept them for dinner.
It is true that man, gun, and kopje were all present upon this occasion, but in the endeavours to drive him off some new developments took place, which formed for one brisk hour a reversion to picturesque warfare. Perceiving a gap in the enemy's line, Hamilton pushed up the famous Q battery the guns which had plucked glory out of disaster at Sanna's Post.
If I had allowed the English to discover what I was doing they would have brought up troops from Thaba'Nchu, Sanna's Post and Bloemfontein; and these troops in combination with the force behind me might have put me into a very awkward position. My old friend, General Knox, whose duty it had been to prevent me entering Cape Colony on a previous occasion, was again entrusted with the same task.
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