GENERAL GATACRE

New Zealand Mail, 15 February 1900, Page 32

GENERAL GATACRE

CAPETOWN, February 7. The mounted forces of Lieutenant-' General Gatacre’s . array division, which is operating on the eastern railway of - Cape Colony, are now in regular touch with Lieutenant-General Kelly-Kenny’s division at Thebus, the railway station on the cross-country railway lately recovered from the Boers by the British. CAPETOWN, February 8. News has been received of hostilities between the Boers and a portion of Lieutenant-General Gatacre’s division that has been operating along the Indwe Railway Company’s line, which runs eastward from Storkstroom, on the colony’s easternmost railway, to the Ind-. V we coalfield. An attack was made by the enemy upon the force camped 1 at Pen Hoek near Bird’s river siding, which is' twenty-three miles from Storkstroom Junction. The attack was made as a feint, to diijert attention from what was meant to " be a more serious assault on Molteno, one of the principal centres of General Gatacre’s column, situated on the main eastern railway line, twenty-one miles north of Sterkstroom Junction. AVhen, however, General Gatacre sent forward reinforcements, the Boers retreated. - ‘