THE BRITISH CHARGE AT TRICHARDSFONTEIN.

Motueka Star, Volume II, Issue 71, 18 April 1902, Page 4

THE BRITISH CHARGE AT TRICHARDSFONTEIN.

Mi* Bennet Burleigh, the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, in a letter dated Standerton, December 26th, gives a graphic description of the night surprise by Bruce Hamilton on the Boer . laager at Triehardsfontein : "Colonel Williams' column, with his Australians, was sent to the right (north) towards the farm buildings, Wing to the left, whilst Rawlinson, with the Johannesburg Mounted Rifles and his own, was ordered to go straight forward. The troops had got to within SOO yards of the laager. General Bruce Hamiltou. ordinarly the most placid of men, burst forth : *Now, men, gallop, , gallop for them !' and Tommy, nothing loth, seeking to get a bit of his own back, drove the spurs well in, and cheered and yelled, rushing as a tornado upon the laager. The squadron leaders and commanding officers also shouting at their men fiery but cheery language, not fit for drawing rooms. And the yell from Williams'" Australians swept down the line, taken up and repeated again and again, from Rawlinson to Wing, column to column, j as, with glaring eye and eager faces,. | they pressed their thunderous charge. Then, for once, how it would have proved had a few squadrons had lances. A Boer picket raised the alarm, and at once the fan tail fight of the 300 Boersin the laager began. Horses were seized and mounted, and away the burghers sped, utterly terror-stricken-Half a hundred came trembling from under waggons, and> with ashen faces,, held their hand above their heads and cried : 'Spare us !We are surrendered! The Bth Mounted Infantry first broke through the laager, but not a trooperstopped to make prisoners. That task was left to those who , followed, or at least to sueh as were unable to gallop their horses further. The 2nd Mounted Infantry made to seize the high ground in the rear, and the astute "Tame Bogers' (the ex-Burgher Scouts), occupied a ridge to the south, and turned back the fugitives flying in that direction." Mr Burleigh says had the Boers so surrounded a British post or laager their first proceeding would have been to fusillade the sleepers. In a subsequent fight two of the Johannesburg Burgher Squadron recaptured one of Benson's guns lost at Brakenslaagte. Four Australians mistook them for Boers, but they cried out that they were "Tame Bogers of Stewart's column."