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Our first long delay was at Elandsfontein, practically still in the Rand District.
We on our part now numbered over five thousand men, for General Roux had joined us with some of his burghers. The English were unopposed until they reached Elandsfontein, but there a battle took place in which big guns played the main rôle, although there was also some heavy fighting with small arms. In this engagement Commandant Michal Prinsloo did a brave deed.
Godley, who was returning by road to Zeerust and Mafeking, and, accompanied by Captain Seymour Fortescue, who had a few days' leave, and by Major Bobby White, I left on June 25 for Johannesburg. The train was painfully slow, and rarely attained a speed of more than five or six miles an hour. At Elandsfontein the engine gave out entirely, and a long delay ensued while another was being procured.
A knobkerry is a stick with a heavy round knob for a head, overlaid, head and stem, with copper and steel wire, in ingenious spirals and patterns. The Kaffirs make them. I also wired to my brother to meet our train at Elandsfontein.
We had managed to distribute and compress our kit so as to leave room to lie down in, and after dark we lit a lantern and played picquet. About eight we came to Elandsfontein, and there on the platform were my brother and Major Burn-Murdoch.
The movement deceived the enemy, to whom the advance of the main body under Lord Roberts on Elandsfontein came as an unwelcome surprise, though Botha had to some extent prepared for it. The detachments posted by him at various places east of the city offered no effectual resistance, and Lord Roberts went into bivouac that night at Elandsfontein.
Lord Roberts proposed to effect the capture of Johannesburg by surrounding it. While with the main body of his Army he occupied Elandsfontein on the east, French and Ian Hamilton, the pioneers of the advance from Bloemfontein, would deal with the enemy posted south of the city and then establish themselves, the former near Klipfontein, north of it, and the latter near Florida, west of it.
So useful did these institutions prove themselves, that as time went on, and the evils of war spread to other parts of South Africa, the committee were asked to inaugurate other hospitals, and, the funds at their disposal allowing of acquiescence, they established branches at Mackenzie's Farm, Maitland Camp, Eastwood, Elandsfontein, and Pretoria, besides a small convalescent home for officers at Johannesburg.
Soon the upper works of a mine showed, and then more, and all at once we were in a great industrial district. At Elandsfontein, the junction for Johannesburg, we had a long halt, and a good breakfast, getting free coffee from a huge boiling vat. We detrained by electric light, and bivouacked in an open place just outside the station.
At Elandsfontein Station the Transvaal colours worn by some of the prisoners of war were taken away by force. On the long journey to Ladysmith we were packed like herrings in open trucks, with insufficient covering for the cold nights. The Ladysmith camp contained chiefly burghers who had been 'tamed' by the enemy, and were ready to take the oath of allegiance. They were well treated.
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