Was Durnford responsible for sending troops out the camp?

Posts : 2581 Join date : 2009-04-24

Can't get to grips with this. What's he saying that the men were out of the camp before Durnford arrived. It's from another officer of engineers.

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HiCTS
It is a tad confusing , how I see it is that Henry Crozier RE saw the letter in ' The Times ' , and then sent it on to the Christchurch paper , by the way Crozier wasn't in Sth Africa during the AZW , as you can see he signs off the letter from himself , at Taunton UK ( ? ) .The original sender of the letter is using an extract from Chard's account , the white men mentioned in Column will be LC and his men heading to Mangeni , Chard states in this report he meets Durnford a mile or so from the camp , when he ( Chard ) is heading back to RD , this is well known , as he was going back to the Drift he met Durnford coming up from the drift , Durnford gives him some orders to pass along to the rest of his column that are still moving up behind him ( Durnford ) , hope this makes it a little clearer ?
90th

Posts : 2872 Join date : 2010-06-02

I'm not sure that quite works. Chard says nothing in his official account about white troops in column about a mile from camp. What we do know is that he spends very little time there and meets up with Durnford on his return to RD about a quarter mile from camp. Durnford then hurries forward and arrives at about 10.30. So lets say Chard had met him at about 10.00 - by then Chelmsford, who had been travelling since 4.00 am, was considerably more than a mile from camp and was no longer visible. What we do know is that Chard's arrival pretty much co-incides with the first stand-to alert when the companies of the 24th were lined up in front of the camp - I think it likely it was that which Chard witnessed.

Steve

Yes Steve that's right , LC had departed very early in the morning , so Chard couldn't have seen them , must admit I didn't remember Chard ever saying he saw a column of white men about a mile from Camp . ActuallyI've just re read it , he may mean the companies out on the firing line , they were out a fair bit , but I think a mile is stretching it . scratch

90th