Later in the day Boers were reported on a neighbouring hill, which was accordingly surrounded, Major Church taking one party, Captain Montgomery and Lieut. Harden another. Eight men were captured and seventeen rifles. They had no idea a British force was near, the camp being very well hidden. They had orders from Herzog not to stay long in the district, as there was no food. One of them was a Secret Agent of the British. Two days afterwards, Major Church came upon and destroyed another Boer supply depôt consisting of two large tin-lined boxes hidden among bushes, and containing eight sacks of wheat and stores of all kind. Round about were rough beds of heather and branches, and fire holes for cooking. On the 17th of September orders were received for the whole column to march in to Springfontein, and entrain for the North. Rain had been falling heavily for a week, and the roads were almost impassable. The oxen were weak with overwork, lung disease and inoculation; dead oxen lay every few yards of the way. Relief wagons were sent to meet the convoy, the end of which struggled painfully in to Springfontein at nine o'clock on the night of the 19th. This convoy, which had been working backwards and forwards between Philippolis and the line with supplies for the column, was left at Springfontein when the column moved North. Lieut. De La Pryme, A.S.C., who had admirably managed the supply arrangements, accompanied the column. On the 19th September news arrived of the disaster at Vlakfontein, not far from Thabanchu, in which two guns of U battery, and their escort of newly-raised Mounted Infantry, were taken. General Bruce Hamilton's troops were accordingly despatched into the district round the scene of action. The Sussex column entrained during the 20th, and the work of hauling and shoving recalcitrant mules and horses into trucks went on all that night by the light of flares. There was a sharp frost at dawn; the helmets of men who had slept upon the ground were white, and the ditch by the railway was covered with ice. The sixth and last train reached Bloemfontein on the evening of the 21st; the column marched for Vlakfontein itself, after being inspected by General Tucker, and on the 23rd camped close to the scene of the fight. The Boers and their prisoners had of course gone, but there were many traces of what had occurred. In a kloof in a long low kopje lay two dead gunhorses. The ground all round was trampled down, probably by the horses of the escort, which had perhaps been put there under cover when the action began. The guns had come into action on the slope of the ridge against a kopje to the north, as the marks made by the spades shewed. Boers had apparently crept up from the direction of Slangfontein farm (which lay to the south), and had taken the position in rear.