The convoy gave him the very opportunity for which he sought.
The escort of the convoy consisted of the 5th Imperial Yeomanry,
sixty of Paget's Horse, three companies of the ubiquitous
Northumberland Fusiliers, two guns of the 4th R.F.A., and a
pom-pom, amounting in all to 630 men. Colonel Anderson was in
command. On the morning of Tuesday, February 25th, the convoy was
within ten miles of its destination, and the sentries on the kopjes
round the town could see the gleam of the long line of white-tilted
wagons. Their hazardous voyage was nearly over, and yet they were
destined to most complete and fatal wreck within sight of port. So
confident were they that the detachment of Paget's Horse was
permitted to ride on the night before into the town. It was as
well, for such a handful would have shared and could not have
averted the disaster.
The night had been dark and wet, and the Boers under cover of it
had crept between the sleeping convoy and the town. Some bushes
which afford excellent cover lie within a few hundred yards of the
road, and here the main ambush was laid.
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