"If you have enough troops at your disposal, I should wish you to occupy Dewetsdorp will make road from here to Maseru safe preventing enemy's forces from using telegraph lines to the south let me know what you can do to this ends."[7] [7] From _True Copy_, furnished by D.A.A.G. in 1900. Now there are two versions of this telegram. The above is the version as it was received by General Gatacre at 9.40 a.m. on March 28. Between the words "_Dewetsdorp_" and "will" he mentally supplied the word "_I_" to fill in the sense. When, however, this important telegram was quoted by Lord Roberts in a despatch to the War Office (dated April 16, 1900), the following verbal variations occur. We find "_I should like_" for "_I should wish_"; the words "_it would_" take the place of "_will_"; "_and prevent enemy_" stands for "_preventing enemy's forces_"; and the last word "_ends_" appears in the singular, thus bringing it into the body of the message.[8] These differences will seem trifling to the reader, but the meaning of this telegram has since been questioned. Gatacre {247} read it as an order to send a detachment to Dewetsdorp similar to the one already ordered to Wepener, and the writer of the _Official History_ so reads it, even in the secondary form.[9] [8] See _Official History_, vol. ii. app. vii. p. 614. [9] See marginal note, _Official History_, vol. ii. p. 302. [Sidenote: Detachments] Dewetsdorp lies on the main road that runs from Bloemfontein south-east through Wepener into Basutoland; the distance from the capital to Dewetsdorp is forty miles, and it is twenty-five miles on to Wepener. A detachment sent there was therefore in far less danger than the post at Wepener, and was a source of strength to the latter. It was also known to Gatacre that General French was operating with a mounted force at Thaba'Nchu, so that he naturally concluded that the road Bloemfontein--Thaba'Nchu--Ladybrand, or Maseru, was strongly held. As he himself said in evidence before the Royal Commission, he "never sent them [the troops] there as an outpost, nor expected them to act as such, but merely to hold a post on an interior road."[10] [10] See _Report South African War Commission_, vol. iii. p. 276. On the same day, March 28, Gatacre sent this reply to the disputed telegram: "Following moves are in progress, in view to covering whole country east of railway. "Three squadrons Brabant's Horse moving Rouxville to Wepener; two will reach Wepener Sunday next (April 1), the third on Tuesday. "One squadron Brabant's is moving to Bushman's Kop half-way between Rouxville and Wepener. {248} "One company Royal Scots Mounted Infantry reaches Wepener Sunday. "Two companies 2nd Royal Irish, Rifles reach Dewetsdorp Sunday. "One company Royal Irish Rifles and one section Mounted Infantry Royal Irish Rifles reach Helvetia to-morrow. "Three companies Royal Irish Rifles at Smithfield with squadron Brabant's Horse."[11]