No doubt he had private information as to the dangerous hold which the Boers were getting upon the colonial Dutch, and it is possible that while Buller and Methuen were attacking east and west they urged Gatacre to do something to hold the enemy in the centre.

On the night of December 9th he advanced.
The fact that he was about to do so, and even the hour of the start, appear to have been the common property of the camp some days before the actual move.

The 'Times' correspondent under the date December 7th details all that it is intended to do.

It is to the credit of our Generals as men, but to their detriment as soldiers, that they seem throughout the campaign to have shown extraordinarily little power of dissimulation.

They did the obvious, and usually allowed it to be obvious what they were about to do.