In the rear of the grand army marched a convoy of over 200 waggons, laden with immense quantities of stores, forage and provisions for the army, and drawn by over 3,000 head of oxen--a month's supplies for a force of 40,000 men. They were in charge of a quite small escort, composed of a company of Gordons and eighty mounted infantry. The convoy had moved slowly behind the army, where, it was thought, no danger was to be feared, from Ramdam to Waterval Drift. At Waterval Drift it began its crossing of the river under cover of the Ninth Division, some 10,000 men strong. But the drift was of such an execrable nature that its passage by the enormous train of waggons was a matter of many hours, and at this moment, when troops might be wanted, and badly wanted, on the banks of the Modder, time could ill be spared. The banks of the Riet at Waterval, as is common with South African streams, were steep; at the bottom lay the river bed, 100 yards wide, with only a trickle of water in the centre and everywhere else soft sand three feet deep, in which the waggons sank up to their axles, inflicting the most prodigious labour upon the teams of oxen and mules that dragged them. Three teams had regularly to be employed to drag each laden vehicle up the northern bank, which meant that two waggons had to stand still for each one that moved. And thus it came to pass that after hours of waiting, the Ninth Division marched off before the crossing was nearly completed. The convoy was left to its diminutive escort. "There are no Boers in the country," said everyone. Yet at this very moment De Wet with a party of about 1,000 men, summoned from Colesberg to Cronje's help, was riding up the Riet from the squalid hamlet of Koffyfontein. A great way off he saw the dust and heard the tumult of shouts and cracking whips that proceeded from the convoy, and, after reconnoitring and discovering that there was no British force near capable of resistance, opened a tremendous fire, just after 9 a.m. [Illustration: COMMANDANT CHRISTIAN DE WET.]