"
"Well, if Sir Redvers thought as you do, why should he go on hammering
at it?"
"For several reasons, Peters. In the first place, if Ladysmith saw that
there was no chance of rescue it would at last give in; and in the
second place, if there was an end of all attempts to relieve the place
England would go wild with indignation; and in the third place, and by
far the most important, Sir Redvers knows that he is keeping from
twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand of the Boers inactive here, and
so relieving the pressure on our troops on the other side. We know
regiments are arriving from England at the Cape every day. When they get
strong enough to invade the Orange Free State and take Bloemfontein, and
march north, the Boers here will be hurrying away to defend their homes.
Of course the Free Staters will go first, but the Transvaalers will have
to follow. We hear that Methuen has been beaten at Magersfontein, and
that he has been brought to a stand-still within the sound of the guns
round Kimberley, just as we are here, and that the Boers have a very
strong position there also. So at present the advance is as much checked
there as it is here. Gatacre has had a misfortune too, so that we are
all in the same boat.
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