In October Colonel Benson's force was reorganised, and it then
consisted of the 2nd Buffs, the 2nd Scottish Horse, the 3rd and
25th Mounted Infantry, and four guns of the 84th battery. With this
force, numbering nineteen hundred men, he left Middelburg upon the
Delagoa line on October 20th and proceeded south, crossing the
course along which the Boers, who were retiring from their abortive
raid into Natal, might be expected to come. For several days the
column performed its familiar work, and gathered up forty or fifty
prisoners. On the 26th came news that the Boer commandos under
Grobler were concentrating against it, and that an attack in force
might be expected. For two days there was continuous sniping, and
the column as it moved through the country saw Boer horsemen
keeping pace with it on the far flanks and in the rear. The weather
had been very bad, and it was in a deluge of cold driving rain that
the British set forth upon October 30th, moving towards
Brakenlaagte, which is a point about forty miles due south of
Middelburg.
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