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Updated: May 19, 2025
He muttered to himself for some time, and suddenly terminated his soliloquy by turning on his heels and disappearing in the darkness. The light of a lantern presently showed a railway station, which I rightly guessed to be Waschbank. Here two Englishmen, probably railway officials, came up to me, accompanied by my treacherous guide.
The retreat of Yule's force was effected without more trouble than that which was caused by the nature of the country and the alternations of the climate. Van Tonder's Pass a difficult defile which would have been impassable under opposition was crossed, and a sudden spate on the Waschbank river only temporarily checked the retirement.
I gathered a strong patrol and started out to reconnoitre the position. We found that the enemy had pitched their camp past Waschbank in great force, and were sending out detachments in an easterly direction. From this I concluded that they did not propose going through Vantondersnek, but that they intended to attack our left flank at Helpmakaar.
This triangle is like a letter A, the cross-stroke being the range of hills known as the Biggarsberg, which is intersected near the centre on a north and south line by the head-stream of the Waschbank River forming a pass through which run the railway and the Dundee-Ladysmith road.
Then the victors gathered together and sang psalms, not jubilant but sad and quavering. The prisoners, in a downcast column, weary, spent, and unkempt, filed off to the Boer laager at Waschbank, there to take train for Pretoria.
Places and rivers which had not been named in the chronicle of the war since October of the previous year now emerged from their obscurity. Elandslaagte became the fulcrum of an aggressive operation. Sunday's River and the Waschbank River after an interval of seven months were again crossed by British troops, not, like Yule's force, in hasty retreat, but in confident advance.
A column was sent out from Ladysmith by White to check the Free Staters who had re-occupied Elandslaagte and to prevent them falling on Yule, and on October 24 they were engaged with success at Rietfontein. The sound of the artillery in this action was audible to Yule on the Waschbank, but he was unable to account for it.
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