Now this was very much the same as saying: "Give up your waggons and carts to the enemy"-- an order which, expressed in that bald manner, would have given offence.
However, I was resolved to have my way, and at the end of my speech, I said, "I may not ask you, and I will not ask you what you will do with regard to the waggons.

I only tell you that they must disappear." On the following day I called the officers together, and gave them direct orders to that effect.

I was very polite, but also very determined that the waggons should be sent off without a moment's delay.
I also gave orders that the Harrismith and Kroonstad burghers under General Philip Botha should occupy themselves in cutting the English lines of communication between Kroonstad and Zand River.

The Bothaville burghers were to carry out similar operations in their own district.
On that same afternoon I rode with my staff to the Heilbron burghers, who now had returned to their farms.

(They had had permission to go home after they had got back from Waterberg.) They had assembled in very strong force.
The enemy also had arrived in this part of the country, and we were therefore obliged at once to get ourselves ready to fight in case it should be necessary, or to retreat if the enemy should be too strong for us.
With the Heilbron, Harrismith and Vrede commandos, I had now a very considerable force at my command.
When I met the burghers on the 25th of September I found that I must send a force in the direction of Kroonstad, in order to oppose outposts which the enemy had stationed some six miles from that town.
I at once sent orders to General Hattingh that he was to come over to me with his burghers.