Note Back to Main Text — Chapter XXI

Botha's detachment and the Boer main army were, however, within an hour's ride of each other, and thus could readily render mutual assistance, unless an attack from the south should be combined with an exactly-timed sortie by the Ladysmith garrison. Yet the Boers had reason to fear this combination against them. The troops under Sir George White were still mobile, and the enterprises against Gun Hill and Surprise Hill, in the second week of December, had shown that both officers and men were keen to be again let slip at the enemy.[216] Moreover, the large number of mounted men, who, though shut up in Ladysmith, were in fact astride of the Boers' lines of communication, both with the Transvaal and with the Free State, would be likely to prove a serious danger in the event of Botha's defeat by Sir Redvers.