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Updated: September 18, 2025
To-day has passed in peace, but marked by a very natural depression as we have seen train after train laden with sick, wounded, and non-combatants, go out to the neutral camp at Intombi Spruit, where these people will have to remain under a white flag so long as this humiliating investment of Ladysmith may last.
The Lancasters advanced with the greatest coolness up the spruit, followed by the South Lancasters. As they pressed forward they were met by a heavy rifle fire both from the kopjes in front and on the left. The Boers stuck to the hill until the Lancasters were within a hundred yards, then most of them slunk off.
The ox-teams came slowly down the road there seemed to be no limit to their number and the generals retreated down the drift to the bottom of the spruit, so that their presence should not be discerned by the enemy, and to await the arrival of the waggons. The shrieking natives drew nearer, the rumbling of the waggons became more distinct, and soon the first vehicle descended the drift.
It is described at Headquarters as a reconnaissance or demonstration. But there are rumours that more was originally intended perhaps an attack on the Boer rail head, with its three heavy trains this side of Modder Spruit; perhaps the destruction of the Modder Spruit Bridge.
The English cannot urge in excuse that, owing to our having cut the telegraph wire, Lord Roberts could know nothing of General Broadwood's position. The booming of the guns must have been distinctly heard at Bloemfontein, as it was a still morning. In addition to this plain warning, the English had an outpost at Borsmanskop, between Koorn Spruit and Bloemfontein.
"What does that mean?" she asked, striving to speak lightly. He replied with his eyes lowered again to his task. "It means among other things that you can't get back to Ritzen until the floods go down. Ritter Spruit is a foaming torrent by this time." "Good heavens!" she exclaimed. "But isn't there isn't there a bridge anywhere?" "Forty miles away," said Burke Ranger laconically.
On the further side a similar steep ascent led up again. "Ritter Spruit," said Ranger. "It's not deep enough to be dangerous. Hold on! We shall soon be through." He spoke to the horses and they gathered themselves as if for a race. They thundered down the incline and were dashing through the stony watercourse almost before Sylvia, clinging dazed to her seat, realized what was happening.
Standerton, Pretoria, Potchefstroom, Lydenburg, Wakkerstroom, Rustenburg, and Marabastad were all invested and all held out until the end of the war. In the open country the troops were less fortunate. At Bronkhorst Spruit a small British force was taken by surprise and shot down without harm to their antagonists.
I heard say, rightly or wrongly, that that fat-faced man with the tooth shot two wounded soldiers through the head after the fight at Bronker's Spruit, and I know no good of the other.
At one o'clock on Sunday, the 20th December, the column was marching along about a mile and a half from a place known as Bronker's Spruit, and thirty-eight miles from Pretoria, when suddenly a large number of mounted Boers were seen in loose formation on the left side of the road.
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