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Suppose that was the reason we did not hurry yesterday. But no guns fired near Trichardt's Drift, and only the frontal force at Potgieter's began its usual bombardment. Sir Charles Warren, moreover, said that his artillery had not finished crossing one battery still to cross and that there was no hurry. Deliberation was the order of the day.
Explained by other remarks of Warren's in his despatches, this appears to mean that the easier road by Acton Homes was thought by him too long for his division to traverse with the food they could carry in their haversacks, and that it was therefore necessary to take the shorter, which leaves the main road three miles from Trichardt's, and strikes directly over the range, passing north, and within three miles, of Spion Kop.
The interval passed in receiving reinforcements, and in accumulating a transport service which should enable the army to perform a long flanking march, for, the frontal attack upon the Boer centre having failed, and its difficulties been not only recognised but demonstrated, the purpose was now to turn their right flank by way of Springfield, some twenty miles to the north-east of Frere, crossing thence the Tugela by a ford six miles distant, known as Trichardt's Drift, and following the Acton Homes road.
Between Spion Kop and the river there was a flat belt of country, and it was along this that Lord Dundonald had ridden with his brigade of cavalry to Acton Homes, where he was still stationed. The point of greatest interest, however, was at Trichardt's Drift, lying six miles west of Mount Alice.
To this end his plan appears to have been for information is scarcely yet properly codified something as follows: Lyttelton's Brigade, the corps troops forming Coke's Brigade, the ten naval guns, the battery of howitzers, one field battery, and Bethune's Mounted Infantry to demonstrate in front of the Potgieter position, keeping the Boers holding the horseshoe in expectation of a frontal attack, and masking their main position; Sir Charles Warren to march by night from Springfield with the brigades of Hart, Woodgate, and Hildyard, the Royal Dragoons, six batteries of artillery, and the pontoon train to a point about five miles west of Spearman's Hill, and opposite Trichardt's Drift on the Tugela.
In order, however, to guard this key carefully the Boers have extended their left as at Trichardt's Drift they extended their right until it occupies a very lofty range of mountains four or five miles to the east of Hlangwani, and along all this front works have been constructed on a judicious system of defence.
The general scheme was to seize the hills which formed the left of the enemy's position and roll him up from left to right. It was known that the Boers were massed mainly in their central camp behind Spion Kop, and that, as no demonstration was intended against the position in front of Trichardt's Drift, their whole force would be occupying the curve and guarding its right flank.
I had seen the evacuation of Spion Kop during the night, and I did not doubt that it would be followed by the abandonment of all efforts to turn the Boer left from the passages of the Tugela at and near Trichardt's Drift. Nor were these forebodings wrong. Before the sun was fairly risen orders arrived, 'All baggage to move east of Venter's Spruit immediately.
The movement was a feint on the Brakfontein Road, and was continued the following days to draw attention from the true attack by Warren. The latter crossed on the 17th at Trichardt's, occupied the hills on the north side commanding the ford, and pushed the cavalry as far as Acton Homes, which they entered without serious opposition, but were soon after withdrawn.
A passage for Warren's division was chosen at Trichardt's Drift five miles above Potgieter's and near to Wagon Drift which is marked on the sketch map issued by the Intelligence Division. From Trichardt's Drift there is evidently a road leading into the Bethany-Dewdrop Road, and parallel to that which runs from Potgieter's Drift.
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