It was important to
regain the guns if possible, as they were always a menace to the
blockhouse system, and for this purpose Grenfell with sixteen
hundred horsemen was despatched to a point south of Lichtenburg,
which was conjectured to be upon the Boer line of retreat. At the
same time Lord Methuen was ordered up from Vryburg in order to
cooperate in this movement, and to join his forces to those of
Grenfell. It was obvious that with an energetic and resolute
adversary like De la Rey there was great danger of these two forces
being taken in detail, but it was hoped that each was strong enough
to hold its own until the other could come to its aid. The result
was to show that the danger was real and the hope fallacious.
It was on March 2nd that Methuen left Vryburg. The column was not
his old one, consisting of veterans of the trek, but was the
Kimberley column under Major Paris, a body of men who had seen much
less service and were in every way less reliable. It included a
curious mixture of units, the most solid of which were four guns
(two of the 4th, and two of the 38th R.
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