[11] See Official History, vol. ii. p. 303. As Gatacre received no reply to the above message he assumed that his dispositions were approved. In furtherance of Lord Roberts's wishes he slightly strengthened the post at Dewetsdorp next day by sending there some mounted infantry of the Northumberland Fusiliers. These changes were also telegraphed to Headquarters. Although such detachment duty naturally fell to the Third Division as line-of-communication troops, still it would seem that the Headquarters Staff, in calling upon Gatacre to furnish these remote garrisons, had overlooked the fact that his _Division_ had never numbered more than four infantry battalions, and had not at any time ever possessed any cavalry. By thus scattering the few men at Gatacre's disposal, the Commander-in-Chief reduced the numbers available for guarding the hundred miles of railway. "The railway was necessarily the first care; if that was seriously broken, the army at Bloemfontein, if it did not actually starve, must be injuriously affected."[12] [12] _Ibid._ vol. ii. p. 306 That this question of the adequate protection {249} of the railway line became a week later a great anxiety to Lord Roberts we know from his urgent telegram of April 5, in which he tells Gatacre to satisfy himself that the guards are properly placed, sufficiently entrenched, and on the alert. [Sidenote: Great distances] There were at Headquarters in March 1900 three brigades of Cavalry, and three divisions of Infantry, with their complement of Horse and Field Artillery, which with other units made up a fighting force of 34,000 men. As has been said, Dewetsdorp and Wepener were both nearer to Bloemfontein than to Springfontein, the headquarters of the Third Division. From this place Gatacre had to arrange for the supplies for posts which were eighty and ninety miles away, and that this could not be done without difficulty we see in his letter to me, dated March 31, 1900: "After reaching this we have been occupied in covering the whole country from Wepener to Philipolis, and all the country between them and the Orange River, with patrols and small parties, and it is such a business getting supplies to all these scattered detachments. We find we can make them somewhat self-supporting by making the farmers supply sheep, and they can get the farmers' wives to bake bread on payment. The roads generally speaking are good, not metalled, of course, but hard clay, which in dry weather are perfect to move upon; in wet weather they become slippery." [Illustration: Map of India and Burma] (Transcriber's note: map omitted from this etext because too large to scan)] The same day the following telegram reached Gatacre from Bloemfontein: {250}