"While the Brigade was at Wynberg, a company of the Black Watch was sent as escort to a convoy of pom-pom ammunition to Smalldeel railway station, and a day or two later half a company of Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders with captured arms and ammunition, and we were informed that they would join us at Kroonstad. The Brigade, however, instead of going to Kroonstad, marched by way of Ventersburg and Lindley to Heilbron, while the detached companies marched by the railway to Roodeval. As we were opposed--practically surrounded--for the last five days of our march, a wire was sent to Smalldeel not to send in a convoy until it could be escorted by a strong force of mounted troops, infantry, and artillery. The Commandant at Smalldeel, however, sent away the convoy under escort of the company and a half of Highlanders, with the result that it was captured. Perhaps the Commandant was acting under orders from the army headquarters, and that remains to be seen." Certain it was that the Highland Brigade, who had already been subsisting on frugal, one may say starvation, fare was left in a sorry plight, and fully appreciated the significance of the saying that too many cooks will spoil the broth. On the shoulders of which of the cooks the blame will eventually rest remains to be seen. It was the opinion of some that sufficient precautions were not taken to insure the expedition's transmission of supplies, and the entrenchment and strong fortification of small bodies of troops sent to guard the line of rail; and also that there was an insufficiently co-ordinated system of intelligence, in consequence of which commanding officers moving with detached forces were without definite information regarding the movements and destination of other forces, friendly or inimical, which might have to be encountered. The mishaps of Sanna's Post--the capture of the Yeomanry and other corps--were thought to have been occasioned by the absence of a general staff--a general staff trained by years of practice to the exigencies of life in the field. Such a staff of trained and picked officers was educated by Napoleon for his use under his personal supervision, while Lord Roberts, with a gigantic army of 200,000 men, had a merely improvised machine. He had certainly Lord Kitchener at his elbow, but this officer's duties developed into those of the "handy-man"--now organiser, now fighter, now administrator in rebellious districts--thus depriving the Chief of the clockwork apparatus that should be represented by the General Staff, at a time when generals and troops, like engines and railway carriages, had to be timed to arrive and depart from stations on the hard-and-fast principles of Bradshaw.