On 10th April the columns under Bruce-Hamilton lined up from Ermelo, through Carolina, to the Middelburg-Belfast line, and in three days' swept the area to the Standerton-Heidelberg line. On the last night of this drive some Boers made a determined effort to get through the line, attacking Gough's M. I.; but not more than forty were supposed to have succeeded, the remainder being beaten back. The column picked up altogether ninety-five Boers out of a total of 134 captured, and a good many Boers were killed in attacking the line. On 12th April some of the advanced scouts were ambushed by a party of Boers, Pte. Leadbetter, of the Royal Sussex Regt., being killed and two temporarily captured. 2ND DRIVE.--From the 18th--20th April the columns swept the area from the Vaal-Springs line to the Bronkhorst Spruit--Middelburg line. There were six columns extended, the Scots Greys joining in from Springs; but the results were very small, the Boers having got through a gap between two other columns on the left. 3RD DRIVE.--On 26th--27th the line went back over the same ground, going over forty miles on the second day. 4TH DRIVE.--From the 3rd--5th May the columns swept the country from Standerton--Heidelberg--Vereeniging southwards to Frankfort--Heilbron and the main railway line, and then on in one day to the Kroonstad-Lindley line; Elliot's columns holding the Liebensberg Vlei on the left. The Boers made a great effort to break through the next column, and some 200 succeeded; but the result of the whole drive was 294 prisoners and eleven killed, which was very satisfactory after the long and arduous drive. The distance traversed on the 6th alone was over forty miles, as the crow flies, which meant a good deal more for everyone, if the unevenness of the land and the continual straining of a line some sixty miles long be taken into account. But this told more on the poor horses, which had to be sacrificed to accomplish the necessary steps for finishing the war. Officers and men not only rode these long distances, wearied by the monotony of trekking hour after hour at the walk, on tired horses, but were hardly able to sleep at night during the drives on account of the possibility of having a trench rushed at any moment, and also on account of the continual firing all along the line, everyone being ordered to fire on the slightest suspicion of Boers being in front. By this time many of the horses were considered incapable of keeping up with the line in a long day's drive, and were sent in to the railway, leaving the Company only about half its original strength. Everyone looked forward to the rest which Lord Kitchener promised us we should soon have, but we had one more drive to accomplish--the return drive to Heilbron and Frankfort, and this proved to be one of the most eventful days for No. 1 Company.