General Redvers Buller, the commander of British forces in South Africa, is in Cape Town having arrived in late October 1899 and walked off the ship and into a firestorm.

His orders to General White in Natal had been ignored, White had allowed Colonel Penn Symons to move north of the Tugela river to Dundee where he’d been killed in action.

Now General White himself was holed up in Ladysmith, surrounded by two large Boer Commandoes, the Free Staters under General Steyn and the Transvalers under General Joubert.