Next day the Gordons returned to Ladysmith, where they were to experience a four months’ siege. Things moved quickly after this. On October 30 was the battle of Nicholson’s Nek; on November 2 the last train left Ladysmith. Leaving for a while the battalion of the Gordons to take their part in the defence of Ladysmith, we will follow the Highland Brigade in their advance upon Kimberley. The opening of the war caused the greatest gratification to all well-wishers of the enemy and a certain amount of despondency at home. On the Continent there was the wildest delight that the Boer army was carrying everything before them. Few nations, apart from America, Italy, Denmark, and Greece, were able to conceal their elation that at last England was likely to pass through her hour of bitter humiliation. After a fortnight, in which five actions had taken place, we had lost a quarter of Natal, a great stretch of railway, and saw our troops besieged or on the eve of being besieged in Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking. The situation could not be regarded as anything but critical. At the same time reinforcements were being hurried out, and should these various positions resist the Boer attacks there was no reason to suppose that the ultimate victory was far off. On November 12 Lord Methuen had reached the Orange River, and, accompanied by a well-equipped force—though not a large one in number—he set out towards Kimberley, where he found the Boers in possession of Belmont. The first action has been described by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as “an Alma on a small scale.” The British troops took the hill by storm, driving the enemy from their position at the point of the bayonet. But the unfortunate culmination to the majority of these early actions was that the Boers bolted to their ponies and galloped away, and owing to our lack of cavalry it was never possible to turn a retreat into a rout. Lord Methuen repeated this success two days later at Graspan, and on the 28th fought the battle of Modder River, in which the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders arrived in time to take a part. Having driven the Boer before him on two occasions within four days, Lord Methuen was under the impression that the farmers had lost heart and would no longer put up a formidable resistance. On the 28th began the advance on Modder River, upon whose banks General Cronje was entrenched. Cronje was a man of considerable strength of character, a skilful general after the Boer tactics, trusted implicitly by his men, and in command of a strong and formidable commando. So far the British had met the enemy entirely in hill country; it had become a kind of dream amongst the British soldiers that if they could only catch the Boer in a plain the effect of discipline and bravery would teach the enemy a severe lesson. There was a certain amount of truth in this belief, and when the Boers did eventually come in sharp contact with the Lancers it was a bitter enough experience for them.