CHAPTER XXIII
THE PRESIDENT RETURNS TO THE PLAINS
We had a pleasant time in the grain districts. There was an abundance of bread and no scarcity of slaughter-cattle. We also found wild-honey in the fissures of the rocks. Everything looked fresh and full of life in the early spring. The veld was green, and the trees heavily laden with young fruit gave promise of a good harvest. All the wheat-fields looked splendid, and at many places we noticed that people would reap where they had not sown; for everywhere there were fields where the seed which had fallen on the ground the previous year had again sprouted and was growing luxuriantly enough to be harvested. What a beautiful mountainous country the "Conquered Territory" is! Is it not the Crown of the Orange Free State?
We spent a pleasant time; but it could not continue, as we were in danger of English columns which were constantly marching to and fro from Winburg to Bethlehem. One of these columns, which was just then passing from Bethlehem to Senekal, took our only Africander medical man, Dr. Fourie, prisoner in his hospital at the farm of David Malan. We should now have been wholly without a doctor if Mr. Poutsma, who on the occasion of General de Wet's second attempt to enter the Cape Colony had been captured by the English, had not cast in his lot with us again. The English had let him return to Holland, and now he had come back from there to South Africa. He was welcomed by us, and the house of Mrs. de Jager at the farm Bezuidenhout's Drift on Wilge River was arranged as a hospital for him.
We could not then remain in the "Conquered Territory." We therefore resolved to return to the plains around Lindley and Reitz. On Sunday, the 10th of November, we were on the farm of Mr. Claesens, near Wonder Kop, and I held service under the trees in the garden there for the burghers, and for two large women's laagers, that were fleeing for fear of the English.
Three days after we were at the farm of Mr. W. Prinsloo. Here General de Wet visited the President, and a meeting of the Executive Council was held.
The General informed the President here that it was his intention to form a large flying commando for service against the English wherever an opportunity offered. This commando was to consist of burghers from Bethlehem under General Prinsloo and Commandant Olivier; and, further, of men from Heilbron under Commandant van Coller; Kroonstad, under Commandant Celliers; Ladybrand, under Commandant Koen; Vrede, under Commandant Botha; and the Transvaalers who were at that time in Harrismith district, under Commandant Mears.
General de Wet left in the afternoon, and in the evening we trekked towards Wit Kop, and halted for the night on the ledges near Mr. Krog's farm, between Wit Kop and Wonder Kop.
The English were once more on the road from Winburg to Senekal, and Commandant van Niekerk intended passing round their front; but just as he was on the point of doing this, a false report was brought him that a force of English was also approaching Senekal from Harrismith, and that they had got as far as Rexford.
The Commandant now determined to pass round the rear of the enemy, and a start was made in the afternoon. We had not, however, progressed very far before we learned that the report that the English were at Rexford was untrue. Commandant van Niekerk now decided to carry out his original intention, and the commando returned to the ledges by a round-about way.
The following day, Sunday, the commando again proceeded, passing over Driekuil and to the east of Tafel Kop, where we halted until dark.
In the clear moonlight we then went on, passing east of Biddulphsberg, and at eleven o'clock we were near Leendert Muller's farm. There an occurrence took place which afforded a slight change in the monotony of the night march. Our scouts, who rode about two hundred yards ahead, saw two horsemen riding towards them and put them to flight. They were very nearly fired upon, but luckily both parties perceived betimes that they were friends.
The two men proved to be burghers, who, along with some others, had charge of a women's laager not far off. They told us that on the west the English from Winburg had advanced as far as the farm of Christoffel de Jager—which fact we were aware of ourselves—and that to the east there were others from Bethlehem, at Scheur Klip; and furthermore, that there were British camps in front of us at Blauw Kopje and elsewhere.
It was now too dangerous to go on, and there was nothing to be done but to return, which we did. And when the eastern sky was reddening with the light of dawn, we were back on the farm Driekuil.
It was lucky for us that we did this, for on Tuesday morning the English from Bethlehem made a sortie towards Kaffir's Kop, which lay directly in our route. We remained in the neighbourhood of Driekuil till Thursday, 28th November, and then rode through the night over Pietersdal, Bester's Kop, and across the Bethlehem road, till we reached the farm Nooitgedacht, near Kaffir's Kop.
On the following morning we were in the immediate vicinity of a fight which General de Wet was having with the English not far south of Lindley. He arrested their progress, and they retired that night to the farm of Caspar Kruger at Victoria Spruit.
On the following day the English had disappeared in the direction of Heilbron, abandoning five waggons. These waggons were loaded with flour, sugar, tobacco, blankets and tents.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE ENGLISH LAY WASTE THE COUNTRY ABOUT LINDLEY
It was in the beginning of December that we returned to the plains, and on the 3rd and 4th the President visited the great flying commando at Lindley. On the second day he addressed the men.
Here we met Judge Hertzog, who had come from the western districts to discuss some important matters with President Steyn. He remained with the President, while he awaited an answer to a letter written to the Transvaal with relation to his visit there.
A service was to be held in the town on Sunday, the 8th of December. Instead of this a fight took place there. The English were seen early on that day advancing from Valsch River bridge.
General de Wet gave orders that one portion of the burghers should take up positions on either side of the Kroonstad road, and the others a position to the east of it, near the Plat Kopje. I witnessed the whole affair. The enemy were in overwhelming force, and slowly advanced in widely extended order. It was impossible for our men to hold their positions. The burghers on the Kroonstad road were the first to give way. They took up positions on the kopjes where, more than a year before, the Yeomanry had surrendered. Shortly after the men on the right flank at the Plat Kop had also to retire. I then saw large numbers of the English come out over the ridges. How few our little groups of burghers seemed in comparison to the large numbers that made their appearance there. Everything was now in the power of the English. They could bombard the Yeomanry kopjes, and our burghers had to desert them also. It was not long before the whole commando was in full retreat towards Elandsfontein.
During the next couple of days the English did as they liked, without any resistance being offered them. They went about everywhere in the neighbourhood, devastated the farms, and took away the cattle with which our people had not fled.
When the President returned there on the 16th of December, after the departure of the English, I heard from the women how sadly things had gone. They were, it is true, not taken away, but they were driven out of their houses, and had to see their dwellings burnt down or destroyed before their very eyes. Could inhumanity go further? If the English did not wish to exterminate us, what then did they mean by driving weak women and children out of doors and destroying the houses? All the food of the women was carried away or scattered upon the ground; and it was only through the kind-heartedness of here and there a more humane officer, or of some simple "Tommy," that a dish of flour was secretly left behind for the housewife. What made everything still more sad was the great service rendered by traitorous Africanders as guides to the enemy.
Mrs. Gert van Niekerk of Windbult told me what had happened to her before the eyes of one of these, Ex-General Piet de Wet. Alas! that I should have to record it, but—
"'Tis true, 'tis pity,
And pity 'tis, 'tis true."
These Africanders made it possible for the English to travel long distances at night, and, acquainted as they were with the habits of their countrymen, they enabled the English to capture Boers, and to seize cattle, where otherwise they would have been unable to do so, or at least could not have done so without infinitely more trouble. How must every noble sentiment have been stifled in these men! It is impossible to comprehend how they could have endured listening to the constant abuse which in the camps was heaped on their own race—incomprehensible how they could constantly, from one farm to another, look on the misery which they were helping to bring upon women and children—who were their own flesh and blood.
From Mrs. Niekerk, then, I heard how she had fared. The English came to the farm Windbult about ten o'clock on the 10th of December, and immediately began to strike the doors, windows, and furniture with axes and hammers, smashing and demolishing everything. If Mrs. van Niekerk attempted to save anything it was snatched from her hands and broken to atoms. But her daughter, helped by an Africander serving under the English, succeeded in carrying out some beds, chairs, and smaller articles.
Meanwhile ex-General de Wet carried on a conversation with Mrs. van Niekerk, whom he had formerly, as her neighbour, known very intimately. This conversation ran nearly as follows:—
P. de Wet. Do tell the burghers that it is a lost cause. Try to persuade them that they are blindly going astray.
Mrs. v. Niekerk. I will do no such thing.
P. de Wet. It is against the Bible to continue the war; for we read that a king must consider if with ten thousand men he is able to meet his opponent who is coming against him with twenty thousand.
Mrs. v. Niekerk. But, Piet, you were a Commandant yourself; what did you think of our small numbers against our mighty foe then?
P. de Wet. My eyes were opened later. I have seen my mistake.... But it is just Christian de Wet and old Steyn who keep the thing going by telling lies to the burghers.
Mrs. van Niekerk had meanwhile kept her eyes constantly fixed on the soldiers who were destroying her property. Pointing at the ruins, she appealed to such sense of right as she thought might still be left in the man, for whom in happier days she had had much respect, and asked: "Are you not ashamed, Piet? See how you are ruining us."
And what was his reply?—What? I do not know how to describe it, so feeble it was,—this: "And why do you ruin England so?"
The conversation continued as follows:—
P. de Wet. The country is lost.
Mrs. v. Niekerk. No, the country is not lost. You are masters for the moment wherever your camps stand. Elsewhere the burghers do what they like and go wherever they choose.
P. de Wet. Wait a bit, till the 200,000 men who are still to come from England are here, and the blockhouses which are to be built from town to town are completed.—Aunt, do tell the burghers what I now tell to you—All is lost. Do tell the burghers so.
Mrs. v. Niekerk. I will not do so. Besides, it would be in vain.
Involuntarily she thought of days gone by, when the man who now stood before her came to her house under conditions so entirely different. "Oh Piet," she said, "have we not prayed together, you and I, in our prayer-meetings, in this very house, that is now being turned into a heap of ruins? Alas! the image which I then saw in you, I see no more. You have forsaken God."
"No," he said; "all of you have done that. And as regards prayer-meetings, every Sunday we do that.... But the consciences of the burghers who are still fighting have become seared."
The house was destroyed; where the doors and windows were, yawning openings gaped. The beams were sawn down, a partition wall thrown down, and the roof fell in,—all this in the presence of Mrs. van Niekerk and Piet de Wet.
The poor woman then went to an outer storehouse, but the English would not allow her to remain there, and she took refuge in a miserable hut used for storing dry cow-dung for fuel.
But on the following day she had to move out of there too, as the enemy said they needed the place to fire from. And so she and her daughter were now stranded on her own premises without the least protection from wind or weather.
But this did not last long. The English ordered her and her daughter to get into a waggon, saying that they would take her to Kroonstad. This, however, they did not do; but informed her on the road, that they would leave her with a woman, and in the afternoon made her alight at the house of Field-Cornet Thys de Beer.
This building was in flames, and Mrs. de Beer was outside with her children, one of whom was a sick baby. The women and children spent that night in a small lean-to, which luckily had not been burnt down.
When Mrs. van Niekerk's son, Jurie, rode to their house on the same day, to see how his mother was doing, some English were concealed in the hut where the fuel was kept. They allowed him to approach, and one of the soldiers called out, "Hands up!" "Hands up, you!" said Jurie van Niekerk, and fired his revolver at them. But there were too many ready for him, and he immediately fell, mortally wounded, by three bullets.
The day after, his father, Gert van Niekerk, returned to his house. He was quite alone, and viewed the ruin of his home. But who shall describe his thoughts when he—standing there all alone—found the still unburied corpse of his son! The English returned, after having killed a great many sheep and taken much cattle. Still, great numbers of cattle were saved by the burghers at night.
Dingaan's Day with its memories of happy rejoicings once more arrived. I had ridden to be with the commando on that day, but wherever I came I always found that it had moved away before me, so that I could celebrate the day with but a small number of people.
On the 17th of December the President was on the left bank of Tijger Kloof, and it was there that the news of Commandant Hasebroek's death reached him. A few days later we learnt that on the 16th of December he unexpectedly encountered a number of English, and that, while galloping away from them, he received a bullet through his head. So he too had given his life for his country's freedom!
Posterity will keep the memory of the gallant Commandant Green. He was a man of noble character. Opposed to all hypocrisy, he was frank and open-hearted, and never hesitated to express his opinions fearlessly to anyone, whoever he might be. He was the idol of his men, and looked after their wants as if they were his children. He was ever the first to enter a position—the last to leave it. He was a tower of strength to our cause; when nearly everyone was discouraged at Nauwpoort, his courage never wavered. If it had not been for him and a mere handful of others like him, who knew not what it was to despair, our whole fighting force would have surrendered to the enemy like cowards. Brave, resolute Commandant, I reverently lay a wreath upon your grave!
Before I bring this chapter to a close, I must add that when President Steyn was retiring from Lindley he had received a letter from Lord Kitchener (in consequence of a letter from Vice-President Schalk Burger to Lord Salisbury, in which he complained about the removal and ill-treatment of our women and the bad treatment they received in the camps). Lord Kitchener wrote on the 1st December 1901 to the two Presidents, and said, amongst other things, that as the Presidents complained of the treatment of women and children, and as they must therefore be able to look after them, he had the honour to inform them that all women and children at present in his camps who were willing to leave, would be sent to the Presidents. Lord Kitchener said he would be pleased to hear where the Presidents desired the women and children to be handed to them.
President Steyn answered that he could not receive them, especially as Lord Kitchener had not only had all the houses destroyed, but also the bedding of the women and children.
CHAPTER XXV
TWO IMPORTANT ENGAGEMENTS
We passed to the south-east of Reitz and came to the farm Inloop, belonging to Mr. Gert van Rensburg. On our way thither I left the commando to go to the office of Landdrost Serfontein, in order to visit the unfortunate de Lange there, who was sentenced to death by a court-martial for high treason. I found him in very sad circumstances; but he was sustained by religion. He passed all his time in prayer and in reading the Bible.
Unfortunately his sentence was not carried out on the appointed day. He was taken to Reitz, his grave was ready, everything was prepared for the enactment of the sad tragedy; but the persons who had to carry out the sentence did not appear. Two days later, on the 21st of December, he was shot while kneeling before his grave in prayer.
General Wessel Wessels had been charged with the sending of a party of men to execute the sentence, but on that day when this had to be done all his attention was occupied by the English near Tafel Kop. The English were busy building blockhouses from the Drakensberg to Vrede, and General Wessels was waiting for an opportunity to attack them. On the following day the opportunity came. There were three forces of British, when General Wessels, supported by the Commandants Ross and Botha, gave orders that one of these forces should be attacked. He had about a hundred and thirty or forty men, while the force attacked were in far greater numbers, and were provided besides with two Armstrong guns, two Maxim-Nordenfeldts, and one Maxim.
Our burghers galloped over a bare plain for nearly three and a half miles, up to the enemy, who were on a kopje. The English let them come up to six hundred yards, and then opened fire on them with shrapnel. Their Maxims also and their rifles came into play. But the burghers were not to be checked. Soon they were so close that they silenced the guns by shooting down the gunners. They then charged up close to the enemy, and there were in some cases hand-to-hand encounters, some of the combatants striking one another with their rifle-butts.
The English were stubborn and fought very bravely; but in a short time everything was in the hands of our burghers. Some of the English took to flight, and very many were killed and wounded.
All the field-pieces were now in possession of General Wessels; but before they could be got away, one of the other two columns turned up from the direction of Paardenberg. This force was repulsed thrice, and our burghers would have got off with the guns had not the third force appeared from the direction of Wilge River.
The only thing to be done now was to gallop out, and abandon the captured cannon. This was only done with the greatest difficulty. The one column was a thousand yards to the right, and the other a hundred to the left; some of the troops were already immediately in front of our men. But fortunately they got through without casualty. Unhappily, however, five men had been killed and four wounded in the storming of the kopje.
Immediately after Assistant Commandant de Kock came in contact on the farm Beginsel with the column, which had come up as a reinforcement from Wilge River. He undoubtedly caused them some considerable loss, for five ambulance waggons were later on busy with the casualties there. Commandant de Kock had, however, also to retire before this column, after he had engaged it for an hour and a half, because a reinforcement made its appearance, and directed the fire of their cannon at him. He had no casualties. We found out afterwards that the force which General Wessels attacked was that under Major Damant, while the one that attacked Commandant de Kock was commanded by Colonel Rimington.
Christmas Day had come again. I was not so low-spirited as on the last celebration of this memorable day. This must be ascribed to the fact that we spent the day pleasantly at Liebenberg's Vlei at the house of Mr. Juri Kemp. I could never have believed that, after a long struggle of two years and two months, we should be able to see such abundance on a table as that which Mrs. Kemp and her daughters provided there. It could not have been surpassed in times of peace. Notwithstanding the want of sugar, the sweet was not absent. The bees had supplied that. It did us good, in the midst of our troubles, to enjoy some pleasant hours, and we did not forget the religious character of the day. In the morning we held service at "Fanny's home," and in the afternoon at Mr. Kemp's house.
In the midst of all this joy I did not know that my son was dead eleven days. It was the same thing over again that evening when we, at some distance from this pleasant scene, were ready again to retire to rest on the grass. Before we did so a rumour came that General de Wet had captured a camp of the enemy early that morning. His report of this event reached the President the following morning. From this report, and from what I heard from the mouths of many who were in the fight, I give the following account of the attack:—
The English were building blockhouses from Harrismith to Bethlehem, and their advance force, 580 strong, under command temporarily of Major Williams, was camped at Groenkop on the farm Tweefontein in the district of Bethlehem. General de Wet had, since he had collected the large commando, sought for an opportunity to come in contact with the enemy. After what had occurred at Lindley, and a fight later near Langberg, which however had not been a success for us, he had as yet done nothing. When, however, Christmas was approaching, he thought that it would be the right time for him to act, and the force at Groenkop drew his attention. He reconnoitred himself, and resolved to make an attack on the night between the 24th and 25th December. He gave the necessary orders late in the night of the 24th, and General Prinsloo and the Commandants marched out with him to the hill.
It was a bright moonlit night, and there was some danger that the advancing force might be seen from above long before the hill could be reached. But fortunately there were clouds floating in the air, which everywhere threw shadows upon the plain, over which the commando had to pass, and it reassured the burghers when they thought that the several divisions might look from the hills like patches of shadow below. There were dongas near the foot of the hill. Our men passed safely through these, and a little farther on they dismounted and began the ascent.
It was then two o'clock in the morning. The Heilbron and Kroonstad burghers, under the Commandants van Coller and Celliers, ascended on the left towards the north, whilst the men of Bethlehem, under General Prinsloo and Commandant Olivier, formed the right wing. In the centre were the men of Vrede and Harrismith, under Commandants Hermanus Botha and Jan Jacobsz, together with Commandant Mears and his men. The burghers were in the best of spirits. They climbed the hill, the one striving to pass the other. "It was splendid to see how they charged," one man said to me. "They went up like a swarm of locusts." There were three encampments of sandstone over which our men had to pass before they could get to the top. Over the first they had clambered, when there came the usual "Halt! who goes there?" Then the sound of a whistle was heard, and immediately thereupon the enemy began to fire. Our burghers advanced with all the more determination over the other two ledges of sandstone, shouting, "Merry Christmas," etc., and rushed upon the entrenchments. The English fired twice with grapeshot and several times with the Maxim-Nordenfeldt, but those who were serving the guns were killed, wounded, or forced to surrender, as was the case with one who was just putting a belt into the Maxim-Nordenfeldt. The forts were soon taken, excepting one on the right hand, and it was from it that most of our burghers who fell were shot; as soon, however, as General Prinsloo noticed the heavy fire from that fort, he stormed and soon silenced it.
Our burghers now fired on the tents, and many English were killed and wounded in them. Many also fled half dressed from the tents, forming, as they ran, movable targets for our men.
"Within half an hour," so General de Wet stated in his report, "all the forts were taken, and the cannon and the whole of the camp were in our hands. The enemy fled, fighting all the while, to at least two or three hundred yards outside their camp, and the fight continued for another hour and a half.... I must say that I have never seen better fighting against an entrenched place. Our officers and burghers literally marched right through the camp. The booty consisted of a 15-pounder Armstrong, a Maxim-Nordenfeldt, a Maxim, and many Lee-Metford rifles. Much ammunition, twenty-seven waggons, laden with all kinds of provision; overcoats, blankets, and about 500 horses and mules were captured." Poor Tommy!—Yes, let me speak tenderly of him, however I might otherwise express myself when speaking in the abstract of the English people, or in the concrete of Chamberlain, Milner, and many officers of the British army,—poor Tommy had received his plum-pudding, tobacco, and new uniform (Christmas presents), and on the evening before he had made a parcel of them and laid it at his pillow with the object of putting it on and enjoying it in the morning. For many a Tommy the morning light did not dawn, and for not one of them came the enjoyment of his Christmas fare.
Our loss was considerable. "We have," so General de Wet reported, "to mourn the loss of fourteen men—heroes!—dead; amongst whom are the gallant Commandant Olivier of Bethlehem, Field-Cornet M. Lourens of the ward, Lower Bethlehem, and Assistant Field-Cornet Jan Dalebout of Harrismith." Besides Field-Cornet Dalebout I personally had to lament the death of another Harrismith man, Jacob Kok.
The number of our wounded was 32. The loss of the enemy was great: 24 were taken prisoners, and, excepting the few who succeeded in escaping, the rest were either wounded or killed. Major Williams was also amongst the killed.
General Brand and Commandant Coetzee, who had just come from the west on a visit to General de Wet, took part in the fight, and their services were highly valued by the General.
At eight o'clock an English reinforcement came from Elands River bridge; but by that time our people had already gone off with the booty. The prisoners-of-war were partially "shaken out" and sent over the Basuto border.
Prisoners-of-war released!—What a strange war this war of ours was. We had no ammunition but that which we got from the enemy; hardly any clothes but those provided us by our adversaries. And when we took soldiers prisoners, then—they were set free!
CHAPTER XXVI
OUR CASE GROWS MORE AND MORE DESPERATE
Blockhouses were also erected in the northern and south-eastern portions of the Orange Free State. One line from Kroonstad to Lindley was finished towards the middle of December; another from Botha's Pass to Vrede and Frankfort at the end of the year; and a third from Harrismith to Bethlehem shut off, with the portion that had already been built from Fouriesburg to Bethlehem, the grain districts behind Nauwpoort, about the middle of January 1902. People had all kinds of ideas about these blockhouses. Some thought that they did not signify much, and might be compared to the flags which are sometimes planted in front of a flock of sheep. At first the sheep remain within the line, but soon they find that the flags form no insuperable barrier, and then they graze up to, and then to the other side of the flags. Others again could not conceal their fears. The English, they thought, were making the circle narrower, and we should eventually have to flee from place to place until we were overtaken and overwhelmed by superior forces. We soon found that there was truth in both views. The circle was drawn closer and closer. If the English columns were marching about, we had to keep our horses tied at nights to be ready every moment to retire to the right or to the left, so as not to be driven against the blockhouses, or we had to retreat before the enemy until near some line of blockhouses, and then suddenly face about and either pass between our pursuers or go round them. On the other hand, the danger of the blockhouses was not so great as had been feared. Burghers could always pass them on horseback, and sometimes they even did so with carts and herds of cattle.
1902.
The New Year had again come; and with the year new trouble and ever-increasing distress. It was not easy for us, in spite of all that had thus constantly gone against us, to remain hopeful. Now and then we read something in the newspapers, picked up on the spots where the English had encamped, that encouraged us somewhat. What we read of Anglophobia in Germany would cheer us up a little and revive the expectation in us that the war would soon be over. But when we would read in the same papers that the English Government was resolved to continue the war at all costs, and when we were constantly eye-witnesses of the uncivilised manner in which the troops carried on the war, then, as far at least as I was concerned, there appeared to be no prospect of a speedy termination—no sign in our clouded sky that the storm was breaking. "Watchman," so I seemed to cry, "what of the night? what of the night?" and it was as if I always received the answer: "The morning has come, and yet it is night."
What especially did not tend to encourage was the increasing violence with which the English continued their destructive work. This took place in the districts to the east of Lindley, chiefly in the month from 10th January to 10th February. Especially was this the case where the column of Colonel Rimington passed.
Colonel Rimington now passed through portions of the districts of Bethlehem and Harrismith, in the neighbourhood of Reitz. When he came to a farmhouse, the first questions of his officers and soldiers to the housewife were, "Where is your husband? Where is de Wet? Where is Steyn? Where are the Boers?" The woman could honestly reply that she did not know, whereupon they threatened to burn down her house, if she gave no information; and while the conversation was still going on she was summarily ordered to carry out her bedding; the soldiers would then with loaded guns and fixed bayonets storm into the house to seek for Boers, under the beds and in clothes presses. They then smashed the looking-glasses, so that the Boers should make no heliographs of them. Further, they took everything they wanted to: pillow-cases to serve as bags for fruit, etc., sheets, knives and forks, even when these had already been carried out along with the bedding. Pots and pans the housewife might in no case retain, even all the dishes and plates were smashed. Worse still, the woman was robbed of all her food; what the soldiers could not eat, such as flour, was thrown out upon the ground, and trodden under foot in the mud and dirt. Bread was never spared; out of the bin, from the table, or hot from the oven, it was taken, and not a crumb left behind. If there were any meat in pot and pan on the fire, then it was carried off, pot and pan and all. And thus the soldiers took the food out of the children's mouths. The mother remained behind with nothing. If she asked what she was to give her two, three, or six children to eat, the rough retort was, "Ask de Wet that?" "Never," said one woman to me, "was it so hard for me, as when my children cried to me for bread, and I had nothing to give them."
And then the soldiers would ride away to do the same at the next house. The woman left behind at the ruins of her house, took some of the zinc plates, laid them sloping against the wall of her destroyed house, and remained there until her husband came and brought her some food, and made a dwelling for her again, as well as he was able. Besides, all this I have heard from women that fearfully insulting language was used towards them by the rude soldiers. This certainly was not indulged in by all, for, as the woman readily admitted, there were some camps which passed through that were blameless. The armed Kaffirs revelled in being able to address the women familiarly with "thou" and "thee." "Where is your (jou) husband?—If he were here now I would shoot him dead." And they marched through the house as freely as the soldiers did.
It often happened that the soldiers broke into a house late at night, and forced their way even into the bedrooms, where the women lay in bed, under pretext of hunting for hidden Boers.
On the 10th of January the column of Colonel Rimington came to our hospital at Bezuidenhout's Drift. Notwithstanding that Dr. Poutsma had been allowed by Lord Kitchener to come and practise amongst us, and that the Red Cross flag was displayed that morning, as usual, over two of the buildings, and over the ambulance waggon, some soldiers stormed the hospital. This is what Dr. Poutsma, inter alia, says in an affidavit: "In and around the building shots were fired, and about fifteen yards from me, at the back door, a horseman dismounted, and kneeling down fired at me. 'Hands up!' he cried, and notwithstanding that I was, of course, unarmed, and moreover had put up my hands, he continued firing, whereupon I fled into the house. When I got to the kitchen some shots were sent after me, but wonderful to relate, without the intended result, as was the case also with six revolver shots which a captain fired partly at me, partly into the kitchen, and partly into the large sick ward. The captain in question, whose name is unknown to me, was so disappointed at all his shots having missed me, that he sprang towards me with the empty revolver, pushed it under my nose, and shouted, 'I'm damned sorry that I didn't shoot you.'
"Meanwhile the shooting inside the house continued at the three nursing-sisters, the Assistant A. van Toorenenbergen, and at me, and, most horrible of all, at the helpless wounded burghers who lay on their beds. I saw one of the soldiers outside kneeling down, and resting his gun on the window-sill he fired two shots at the wounded burgher Wessels, who, however was not hit, but was covered with dust from the wall beside him, where it was struck by the bullet."
The doctor now went to the veranda, and was there arrested by order of a major. But when the Assistant Mr. van Toorenenbergen shouted, "Doctor, Sister Rautenbach is wounded," he wrenched himself loose, and went into the large sick ward.
"I found the young lady," so Dr. Poutsma declares further, "bathed in her blood. Four bullets had frightfully mutilated her."
The shooting ceased, and the doctor bandaged Miss Rautenbach. Then some officers entered, and then came the sickening: "I am awfully sorry." When Dr. Poutsma afterwards spoke to Colonel Rimington about this occurrence, he expressed his regret that Miss Rautenbach had been wounded, but added that he would not have been sorry in the least had Dr. Poutsma been shot, as one of his own doctors had shortly before been killed by the Boers at Tafel Kop.[12] Further, he said that the Red Cross flag had not been noticed, and that he had never heard anything about a hospital there. He also wished Dr. Poutsma to admit that all that had happened was "an accident," which, as may be supposed, was refused. Not even sacred edifices were spared. At Reitz the troops broke up the floor of the Dutch Reformed Church to make fires with. The churches at Frankfort, Ventersburg, and Lindley were burnt down.
So things went on. About our alleged misdeeds we saw reports in almost every newspaper that we picked up; but we had no opportunity to make known to the world what the English were doing to us.
The English wanted to make an end to the war. They tried all means to attain this object speedily; also proclamations! but proclamations, as they had discovered, had had but little effect on the Boers. Especially had this been the case with regard to the one which had offered the Boers a chance of laying down their arms up to the 15th of September. What other plan could they now devise to end the struggle which, notwithstanding all this devastation, still continued, and appeared likely to continue indefinitely? Surely not another proclamation? No, but a letter! Lord Kitchener wrote a letter, an extract from which was, in the beginning of January 1902, left lying about for the information of the Boers on the farm where the English camps had halted. Lord Kitchener advised the Boers, in this letter, to take the matter into their own hands, because, as he asserted, President Steyn and General de Wet were resolved to ruin them utterly. The Boers should therefore act for themselves and lay down their arms, and he promised them that if they—not one by one, but in small numbers,—a corporal with ten men, a Field-Cornet with twenty-five, and a Commandant with fifty men—surrendered, they would then not be banished. They would, moreover, not lose their remaining cattle, and would, moreover, after the war, receive aid from the British Government to help them up again.[13] How shameful it was that, ever since Nauwpoort, the British Government had been doing its utmost to induce the burghers to commit treason. But all is fair in love and war is their own motto.
This "paper bomb," however, did very little execution. As little notice was taken of it as of the recent proclamation. Our people stood firm.
That our people as a people remained steadfast became more and more evident to me. However much our numbers in South Africa may have become diminished through the deportation of great numbers, and through the still greater numbers who had lost courage and had surrendered, our people as a people still always continued to exist. This the English were anxious to deny. They were fond of asserting that it was only a small fraction of the people that still resisted. This was not the case. It is true that it was only a minority that were still able to continue the struggle; but the heart of the nation, as a whole, was still always faithful. The majority of our prisoners-of-war had remained loyal to the cause. The majority even of those who in their dejection laid down their arms had no desire to remain under British rule. On an earlier page I have indicated what the feeling was on the island of Ceylon, and here I wish to add something which proved to me that in the Bermudas the feeling against England was still stronger, if possible, than in Ceylon.
Shortly after I had got possession of the extract of Lord Kitchener's letter just referred to I read the following description of the prisoners at Bermuda: "Many of them (the prisoners) are irreconcilable, and show their bitterness and hostility in every way. For instance, they have refused to accept for their dead the military honours which are usually accorded the British soldier. The Boer chaplain, the Rev. J. R. Albertyn of Wellington in the Cape Colony, requested, on behalf of the men, that the coffin of a deceased burgher should not be covered with the Union Jack, and that the three volleys usually fired over the soldier's grave should be discontinued."[14]
When I read this my heart leaped for joy. Our people were still one and undivided, I thought. If there were hundreds of our flesh and blood siding with the British, then there were thousands who did not. Even those on whom the depressing influence of imprisonment must have had a baneful effect remained irreconcilable, and showed it in every way.
What also struck me, when reading the newspapers, was how England damaged her own cause; because, in her excessively overbearing attitude, she did not understand the art of being conciliatory.
Four colonists, rebels—so one newspaper related—were brought to the market-place at Cradock. Shortly after their arrival there the commanding officer rode up, ushered in with the music of Rule Britannia. Thereupon the accusations and the sentences against these four men were read. It appeared that all of them had been sentenced to death, but that the sentences of two of them had been commuted to imprisonment for life. Then a royal salute was fired, and the English National Anthem played by the band. What an exhibition, I thought, of England's pride! One would have thought that it was indeed Rule Britannia throughout South Africa. But so far it had not yet got, and the action of England there—the exhibition of the sentenced men in the market-place, the playing of the National Anthem, the firing of a royal salute—all that could have no other effect than to cause race hatred to strike roots still deeper, not only in the Republics, but throughout the whole of South Africa, and to drive every irreconcilable man anew to set his face like a flint against all that is English.
Ten days after Rimington's troops had committed those atrocities in the hospitals, they and several other columns came to the neighbourhood of Reitz, and were even more than usually active. They captured large numbers of cattle, and continued devastating the farms.
Their object was, however, chiefly to capture President Steyn and General de Wet, and also to regain possession of the guns taken by us at Groen Kop, which, since the 25th of December, had been conveyed about from one place to another between Liebenberg's Vlei and Wilge River. Unfortunately they succeeded in this. The guns were captured at Roode Kraal, Liebenberg's Vlei, on the 4th of February. At the same time the English drove General de Wet and a considerable number of burghers through the line of blockhouses between Kroonstad and Lindley. The General passed through without firing a shot, but was not so fortunate when, shortly after, he returned. He then lost several burghers, dead and wounded.
After that we had rest in the neighbourhood of Reitz until the 21st of February; but of this I will give an account in a following chapter.
Saturday, the 8th of February 1902, was a sad day for me. Marthinus Snyman, who had been to Witzieshoek, heard there that my son had died at Ladysmith. On the following Monday I received a letter from my friend the Rev. J. J. Ross, who informed me that he had, about the 20th of January, received a letter from the Rev. Dieterlin containing among other things the following words: "I saw in the papers that young Charles Kestell, aged 17, died in Ladysmith; is he not the son of our friend of Harrismith?" A sword passed through my heart.—But this is not the place in which I must record personal experiences of this kind.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE HOLOCAUST OF WOMEN
During the short period of rest in the neighbourhood of Reitz, President Steyn and Judge Hertzog were engaged, together with the other members of the Executive Council, Messrs. Brebner and Olivier, in writing letters to the sovereigns of Europe and to the President of the United States of America. These letters were intended to explain our position, and to ask whether the Powers would not exert their influence in the interests of the Boers, especially regarding matters concerning the rules of civilised warfare and the fundamental principles of international law, which were both being shamefully outraged by the English in this war.
It was intended that a messenger should be sent to Europe through German West Africa with the letters, and that he should himself, when abroad, further explain matters.
At the same time Judge Hertzog busied himself in collecting affidavits from women and others, who had suffered under the barbarity of the British soldier, and the Kaffirs in their service. I was allowed to read these declarations, and must admit that I have never perused anything more heartrending. Let me here note a few facts.
One woman declared that an English Colonel had pulled down her house over her head at Haco, in Ladybrand district, on 21st January 1902. On the 27th of the same month a patrol of the same officer came and took her prisoner. They made her and her children walk in front of the patrol for a distance of three miles, and that when she was so far advanced in pregnancy that she gave birth to a daughter ten days later.
The wife of Commandant J. J. Koen, of the Ladybrand Commando, was taken from her house at Blanco, in the district of Ladybrand, against her will, by a patrol of Major General Knox, on 27th January 1902. The order was first given that she should go to the camp on foot with her children, of whom one was a baby of a month old. Fortunately, however, there was a cart which the English had looted that morning, and she was allowed to go in that. The night was cold and stormy, but, notwithstanding that, she had to pass it, with her children and two other women who had likewise been captured, under some trees in the open air, with very little bedding. On the following day she was brought up and cross-examined like a criminal, and this was repeated shortly after before a Colonel. This officer told her that her husband had captured eighteen of his Kaffirs the day before, and said that if her husband had those Kaffirs shot, he, the Colonel, would give the 1000 Kaffirs under his command liberty to do with her as they chose. The number of women and children had in the meanwhile increased to eighteen, and all were in the open air, without protection against wind and weather. In vain Mrs. Koen begged for a tent.
A Colonial, however, took pity on her, and spread a buck sail over the waggon under which the women and children had sought shelter from the rain. This kindly deed of the Colonial displeased the Colonel, and he severely took him to task about it. From Monday morning to Wednesday evening the women got nothing to eat, and again it was a Colonial who intervened. This man gave them some raw meat, biscuits, and a little coffee and sugar. But they had themselves to provide for fuel, and that on a bare hill where there was none to be found.
From Mequatling's Nek the women and children were conveyed to the farm of the late General Ferreira, on a trolley waggon loaded with seed-oats. It rained all the while, and they were drenched to the skin. They passed the next night under a buck sail with scanty covering. After spending nine days like this, Mrs. Koen was given a broken-down cart and two lean horses to return with to her house. She found it looted.
The Colonel had made the threat not to Mrs. Koen only. When he uttered the disgraceful words to that lady, he had already written a letter to her husband from Mequatling's Nek, dated 21st January 1902, in which these words appear:—
"I request from you proof that these boys [Kaffirs captured by Commandant Koen, and afterwards sent by him to Basutoland] are safe. Should I find, on the contrary, that you have murdered them, or should you murder others, besides other penalties, which you will assuredly not escape, I warn you that it will be beyond my power to control my Kaffirs in their action towards your women. I hope, however, that your assurance, accompanied by proof, that my Kaffirs are safe, will enable me to assuage my Kaffirs, and to continue to you that protection which I have hitherto been able to grant them."
Now, I ask, suppose that Commandant Koen had shot the Colonel's Kaffirs, could such a deed justify a British officer to set loose savages upon defenceless women?
Another woman declared that on the 9th of September 1900, a soldier, a Hottentot, and two Kaffirs visited her farm, Jolly Kop, in the district of Bethlehem. The soldier remained some distance off, but the others came to her, threatened to shoot her, and forcibly removed her rings from her fingers.
Many acts of unnecessary and reckless violence took place in relation to women in very weak condition. If the columns trekking about wanted to burn a house or take a woman away from her house, they seldom took into consideration whether a woman was ill or in a weak condition. There were officers and men who had neither heart nor eye for the weakness which is generally a guarantee and protection against violence. Here is an instance.
A woman was taken from the farm Omdraai, district Bethlehem, towards the end of March 1901, when she had been delivered of a child but one day.
Another, on the farm Tijger, district Heilbron, had a child of one day old. Notwithstanding this, on 20th January 1902 Colonel Rimington had her house burned over her head, and she was forced, ill and weak as she was, to totter out of the house so as not to be consumed by the flames.
The same thing had happened on the 1st of November 1901 to a woman at Vogelstruisfontein, district Heilbron. Her child was but two days old, and she too had to save herself from the burning house. Too often in this war it happened that the courtesy to women which chivalry dictates was lacking on the part of the British. Not only were our women treated with disrespect and contempt, but this contempt was as often accompanied by a large measure of cruelty.
So, for example, it very often happened that the English fired on the houses with cannon and rifles, under the pretext that the Boers had concealed themselves in them. In many cases it turned out afterwards that these houses were occupied by women and children only, and that some of these had been wounded by the firing which had taken place.
And then, when the women were taken away, the enemy placed them on open waggons, where they had no protection from sun, wind, or rain. There was one woman who was conveyed from her house on a gun-carriage. This took place in the middle of May 1901, on the farm Moolman's Spruit, district Ficksburg.
From other women the soldiers took all their clothing, and searched them for money they had hidden on their persons. And when the women were driven out before the soldiers, or when they were allowed to return to their homes from a camp, they not only carried their babes, but also bundles of clothing—and these were often women who had never before carried any burden. Our Africander women carrying bundles like tramps! On what Viæ Dolorosæ did they have to go!
Racial hatred? Who is to blame for it if it exists?
Who can blame the Africander if he cannot forget what was done to his mother, to his wife, to his sister?
In the middle of July 1901 a burgher on the top of Venter's Kroon saw an English patrol set fire to a waggon along the Vaal River. When the English had ridden off he went to the burning waggon and there found the sister of Mr. H. Miny of Vredefort burned to death. She was sixty years old, and had never in all her life been able to walk. The burgher found her about twenty yards from the waggon, with her hands before her eyes, and it would appear that she had crawled so far after the waggon had been set on fire. It may be that the English had not seen her. Let us hope that this was the case.
Much was said in the declarations about things I have spoken of in former chapters, in regard to the rough treatment the women were subjected to when the flying columns burnt their houses and destroyed their dwellings. Much was said, too, of the pillaging which took place on such occasions; of the breaking or looting of plates, dishes, pots and pans; the plundering of everything in chests or wardrobes, the carrying off of all movable food stuffs, and the manner in which such provisions as could not be taken away—flour, beans, peas, and the like—were strewn on the ground. They complained bitterly that the soldiers left them nothing to eat, and that thus, so to speak, the very bread was taken from the mouths of the children. How our women and children suffered!
And what shall I say of deeds more horrible than the worst that I have related here?—deeds which, out of respect to our wives and our mothers, I cannot name, but of which I, alas! just as in the cases I have mentioned, can give the date and the place? Would that I did not need even to allude to them! But I must! I must let the curtain rise but swiftly to exhibit other scenes—but as in passing—for all may not be seen, and what is seen must only be partly seen. Our women were assaulted and ill-treated, so that after the departure of the British flying columns they were sometimes confined to their beds for days, and in many cases bore the marks of blows and bruises for weeks.
Worse still! There were many attempts at violation, and there were cases in which violation actually took place, in a manner which it is impossible to describe here.
Me Miserum! that I must record this—that it is necessary to lead posterity to the altar upon which our women were offered!
CHAPTER XXVIII
A GREAT DRIVE
The President was obliged to leave the neighbourhood of Reitz about the 20th of February 1902, because the English were again beginning to enter the district. After having had a short time of rest, and having spent it in composing the letters mentioned in the preceding chapter, he met General de Wet at Slabbert's farm, Rondebosch. While he was still busy there with a mass of correspondence he also discussed various affairs of importance with the General, amongst which was the question of the route which the messenger who was to be sent to Europe should take. While they were thus engaged we heard that the English were approaching from the direction of Liebenberg's Vlei, and on the evening of 21st February both the President and General de Wet proceeded as far as the house of Mr. Taljaart.
Early on the following morning they were on the farm of Mr. Wessels, and intended finishing their correspondence there; and the secretaries of the President and of the General were hard at work when news was brought that the English from Liebenberg's Vlei had advanced to within a very short distance of us.
We hastily saddled our horses and trekked through Wilge River near the residence of Commandant Beukes, and halted late that afternoon not far from the farm of Mr. Christiaan de Wet—not the General. That evening General de Wet received a report from the Commandant of Vrede, Hermanus Botha, which stated that there were large forces of the English between Botha's Pass, on the Drakensberg, and Frankfort, and that these forces were moving towards Harrismith in the form of a cordon.
It was clear now that we were in a great kraal, as it was called, and that to escape from it we should have to make an attempt to pass round the wings of the cordon, or otherwise to break through somewhere where there was an opening. In the course of the evening Commandant Ross with his Frankfort burghers also joined us, and everything was now under the direction of General de Wet. At ten o'clock that night we commenced to trek, and off-saddled at three o'clock on the following morning, Sunday, on the farm of ex-assistant Field-Cornet Jan Cronje, near Cornelis River.
Soon tidings were brought that the English were advancing in great numbers, and we had to proceed immediately. At ten o'clock we were again in the saddle. But how greatly had our numbers increased during the night. Not only were the men of Commandant Ross with us, but also a great number of persons who were not liable to commando duty, on account of old age or bodily weakness. These had left their farms, and were fleeing before the enemy. There were also children—boys from eight years upward. Everywhere there were crowds of vehicles of every sort—buggies, carts, and spiders—besides which the veld was covered with enormous numbers of cattle.
When we passed through Cornelis River, close to the house of Paul Prinsloo, the number of cattle was so great that the veld seemed literally alive with them. They were driven along in separate herds, and it was a puzzle to me how the owners managed to keep them apart. But it was the numbers that astonished me, and not only me, who knew nothing of cattle, but the Boers themselves. General de Wet declared that he had never seen so many cattle together at one time. What a multitude! From the foremost to the hindmost there was a distance of about six miles, and it was covered with one vast mass of living creatures—men, horses, and cattle.
In order to remain out of sight, General de Wet made the great motley crowd trek up in the hollow on the left bank of Cornelis River, and in the afternoon we reached Brakfontein, where we off-saddled and outspanned. There Commandant Hermanus Botha joined the Chief-Commandant and reported that the English had advanced to the banks of Holspruit, and that they had halted in small camps, a thousand yards apart, from the Drakensberg up to Wilge River. It was also known to us that the force which had caused us to retreat through Wilge River had formed a line on the other side of the river. It was undoubtedly the largest drive which the English had up to that moment made. The question was, how to escape. We could not get round the flanks, for these were so far to the east and west that there might just as well have been no flanks at all. And there was no time for delay, for the line would grow shorter every day, and the enemy would thus be enabled to bring their camps closer to one another. Delay? General de Wet was not the man to delay, and he did not now. Now, as always, he perceived in a moment what was to be done. He must break through the cordon that very night. He decided that this should be done at Kalk-kraus, near the house of old Mr. Samuel Beukes.
The sun had just set, and the full moon began every now and then to shoot a ray of light through the rifts of a dark mass of clouds which lay on the eastern horizon, when the vast multitude once more commenced to move. What a commotion there was! Each owner toiled to keep his cattle together and shouted to his ox-herd. The herd again yelled and whistled to turn the cattle and to urge them onward; and above all this uproar could be heard the lowing of the cows and the bleating of the calves. The Kaffirs raced to and fro, and you could see, gliding through the throng, here a cart and there a buggy, while continually you noticed horsemen feverishly pushing through in order to get to the front. It seemed, as someone remarked to me, that a pandemonium had suddenly been called into being. In half an hour the horsemen were all in front; behind them came the carts, one after the other, and then the cattle. These, now that they were being driven steadily forward, ceased to render the night horrible by their bellowing.
General de Wet ordered that the following order should be observed: a number of men were told to advance as a right wing and another as a left, while a small vanguard rode on ahead. In the centre was the General with the President. Behind them came their staffs; then followed the great motley crowd—the people who were driving the spiders and carts and buggies—and in the rear the mighty host of cattle.
We proceeded, continually halting to wait until the great rearguard could come up. The moon was not visible, as the sky was clouded, but it was light enough to see well. Onward we went. Before us we could see the vanguard, and on each side, near us at one moment and farther off the next, the flanks moved along. Everything looked weird and uncanny. At last we reached the bank of Holspruit. It was just midnight. We trekked through the spruit and approached the ridges to the east of Mr. Beukes's house. We knew that if we passed over those ridges unnoticed we would be through the kraal without mishap. But the English were lying in wait for us there. Along the whole line they had built small forts between their camps, and they had done so here too.
The foremost men begin to climb. Suddenly we see two or three flashes above us on the ridge—a little to the right—and immediately we hear the report of rifles echoing through the valley. There on our left, too, we see sparks of fire. The whole commando suddenly comes to a standstill. The horses become restive. The burghers turn back. Great is the fury of the General when he sees this, and with forcible language he orders the men to charge. The bullets whiz past us everywhere, and several burghers are hit. My pony is slightly wounded under me. General de Wet and his officers succeed in making the burghers climb the hill to the left of the fort on our left hand, from which the English are firing on us, and we reach the top. We are hardly there when the ghastly dud-dud-dud-dud of a Maxim-Nordenfeldt is heard; the tiny shells fly shrieking over us, and burst amongst a number of burghers not far from where we are.
Hark! what is that?
The cry of a little boy at the sound of the Maxim-Nordenfeldt. Never in my life have I been touched deeper in my heart than by this child crying in the night. Why is he present at such a scene? Meanwhile, on another part of the ridge, Commandant Ross and the two brothers, Commandant and Assistant Commandant Botha, had engaged the enemy. They stormed and took several forts. They even gained possession of the Maxim-Nordenfeldt; but, as might be expected, they could not remove it. Many English were killed and wounded there. We had now burst through one line of forts, and there was another through which we had to pass. We saw before us a line of small flashes from the rifles, and knew that we had to face them. The officers had the greatest trouble to get the men through the unceasing fire. Every now and then a dash forward was made, but each time the men were baffled and returned. More than half an hour passed thus. At last a supreme effort was made, and we were through. About 600 burst through in this manner. But many remained behind. There were some who went back after they had actually gained the ridge, and others did not venture to go farther than the foot of the hill.
Of the great drove of cattle not one had even reached the foot of the hill. I make especial mention of this, because the English declared in their account of the affair that General de Wet drove great numbers of cattle against the forts and then burst through behind them. Only later in the night did some herds get through in another place with about 500 head; but the thousands of cattle, together with a considerable number of burghers on horseback and all the persons in the buggies, spiders, and carts, remained behind, and far the greater part fell into the hands of the English four days after. It is a pity that they had not had the courage to break through, for after the Commandants Ross and Botha had taken the forts the way was open. Not all, however, who drove in the carts remained behind, for the waggonette of the General and one cart in which a wounded man was conveying a comrade who was ill with fever accomplished the passage. Just as they were out of danger the sick man died on the cart!
We had a heavy loss to deplore—13 killed and about 20 wounded. Those who had broken through hurried on, and reached the farm Bavaria, at Bothaberg, just after sunrise.
Here we buried in one grave a burgher of the President's staff named Piet van der Merwe, and a boy of only thirteen years of age named Olivier. When I was walking towards the grave I encountered a little boy who had gone through the terrible night along with us. He wore a suit made of sheepskin, and there were traces of fatigue on his drawn face, while the light which should have sparkled from his eyes was dimmed. Was this, I asked myself, the child whose cry I had heard in the night, when the shells of the Maxim-Nordenfeldt flew over us?
"What is your name?" I asked him.
He told me his name.
"How old are you?"
"Oom, I am eight, and going on for nine."
Such things happened in this war of ours, and England's boys of eight and nine—those who were not left to their fate, with cold, blue, bare feet, in the snow and ice on the streets of her great cities—did their mothers snugly tuck them in their warm beds? But the mothers of our children knew to what danger their boys were exposed, of being torn from their arms and mercilessly carried off; and rather than see this happen, they sent them away from their warm beds, to hear at midnight sounds and see sights that the ears and eyes of strong men could hardly bear.
That day the English remained where they were, but on the following they proceeded and formed the great cordon on the bank of Cornelis River.
Commandant Hermanus Botha then found an opportunity to bury our dead on the battlefield.
There had been a drive at the same time on the west of Wilge River, from Scheurklip to Britsberg, and from there in a segment east of Kroonstad to Lindley. This operation was the largest drive the English had hitherto made. A few days after he had broken through, General de Wet found an opportunity of examining the forts of the enemy. He found that they had been such a protection to them, and so formidable to us, that he wondered that more of our men had not been killed.
While he was viewing the forts burghers rode past from time to time, and informed him that during the preceding night (25th February) 500 burghers had dashed through the cordon at Sterkfontein near the sources of Cornelis River. We also heard that General Wessels had escaped near Steil Drift without firing a shot, and somewhat later news came that General Hattingh of Kroonstad had forced a passage, with all his men and a considerable number of cattle, to the west of Lindley.
These tidings encouraged us, but what a blow it was when soon after we heard that Commandant Meyer, who had command of a portion of the Harrismith burghers, had surrendered on the 27th not far from Tandjesberg. We heard the particulars from an eye-witness, Patrick van Coller. He had escaped, and had seen the sad incident from a hill on which he had hidden himself. He said that he saw a man with a white flag ride from the commando to the English. Thereupon these rode to the burghers. The rifles were first demanded, then the saddles. The latter were burnt in seven heaps. Our men were then marched to Harrismith as prisoners-of-war.
We afterwards heard that there had been five or six burghers who would not surrender and who had raced away. They had succeeded in escaping, notwithstanding that they had been pursued by the enemy.
From time to time news reached us of remarkable escapes. I will only mention the following case.
Old Mr. Hendrik Barnard, who was between seventy and eighty years old, was one of the great number of fugitives. He had fled with a cart until he was forced to abandon it on the near approach of the English. Then he hid himself in the reeds on the banks of a spruit. There he lay for two days. Luckily he had with him a faithful Kaffir lad who cared for him as a child. If the old man looked out to see whether the English were near, the Kaffir boy would warn him, saying, "Look out, oû bâas! the Khakis will see you." Mr. Barnard had a little food with him, but not enough. This was replenished after dark by the Kaffir boy, who fetched from a neighbouring farm what they needed. Thus two days passed, and then, with all manner of pain in all his limbs, occasioned through the cramped position he had been forced to take, the old man could leave his hiding-place.
England spared neither women nor children nor old men tottering on the brink of the grave!