Note Back to Main Text — Chapter X

At 2 a.m. Commandant Van Dam, lying in bivouac with his Johannesburg Police[134] beneath Pepworth, received orders from Joubert in person to proceed at once to the northern summit of Kainguba and hold the ridge above Nicholson's Nek. The Boer officer thereupon galloped for that spot with 400 men, being warned of the proximity of British troops by a Field Cornet of the Pretoria commando, who lay with thirty men on the northern slope of the high ground east of Bell Spruit. Gaining the Nek, the Police found it occupied by 150 Free Staters, who moved away further west on their approach. Van Dam's plan was quickly made. Sending a message to the Free Staters that if they would ride round to the flank and rear of the British, he would attack straight over the top of the mountain, he left fifty burghers in the Nek in charge of the horses, and led the remainder on foot in straggling order up the hill. The crest was gained and half the summit traversed before shots rang out from the shelters of the advanced companies of the Gloucester. But the Boers fired no round until, at 800 yards, the foremost British sangar was visible through the long grass. Meanwhile the Free Staters, under Christian De Wet and Steenkamp, crept around the foot of the steep ground under Van Dam's right, swinging northward. Then they, too, began to climb, and by 10 a.m. Carleton's column was entrapped.