patrolling around the advancing Boer forces. On 30 October his cavalry fought dismounted at Lombard's Kop north-east of Ladysmith; this was the right flank of three unsuccessful actions—the others being Nicholson's Nek and an infantry action at Long Hill in the centre which ended in near-rout—fought by White's troops on "Mournful Monday". Although French pointed out that cavalry were unlikely to be of much use in a besieged town, White refused him permission to break out. On 2 November, after he had spent the morning on a raid on a Boer laager, French received orders to leave Ladysmith. French and Haig escaped under fire on the last train out as the Boer siege began; Boers tore up the track minutes after the train passed. Steaming from Durban on 3 November, he arrived at Cape Town on 8 November, meeting with Buller, whose Army Corps was then arriving. Colesberg operations French was initially ordered to assemble the Cavalry Division at Maitland, near Cape Town. Now a local lieutenant-general like Buller's other four division commanders, he was then ordered to take command of forces covering the Colesberg area, filling in the gap between Methuen's division (operating at Orange River Station, with a view to relieving Kimberley and Mafeking) and Gatacre's Division at Stormberg. On 18 November he went up to De Aar, nearer the front, to confer with Maj-Gen Wauchope, in charge of the lines of communication. French arrived at Naawpoort on the afternoon of 20 November, and personally led a reconnaissance the following morning. The Boer force of General Schoeman had been reinforced by local Boers, and French, not strong enough to attack Arundel directly, conducted an active defence. At one stage, in late November and until 14 December, he was also required to extend his forces east to Rosmead to protect the railway to Port Elizabeth on the coast. A Boer penetration here would have cut off Cape Colony from Natal. French was proud of having achieved "moral ascendancy" (keeping the initiative, in modern parlance) over the Boers despite his force of 2,000 men being outnumbered by two to one. French's subordinate Colonel T. C. Porter won a small action near Vaal Kop on 13 December, but the Boers captured that place on 16 December, causing French to go forward and take personal command. Around this time he offered to cancel his plans to advance on Colesberg and lend his