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Whilst prisoners they saw ten men returning from the Fields stopped by the Boers and ordered to come to the laager. They refused and ran away, were fired on, five being killed and one getting his arm broken. These are a few instances of the treatment meted out to the unfortunate natives, taken at haphazard from the official reports.
The road now descended into a sort of basin or hollow, wherein lay the snug little town of Vryburg, with its neat houses and waving trees, and beyond it we could see the white tents of the Boer laager.
As soon as the wounded were safe under the shelter of the trees I despatched a message to Sir George White asking him to send his ambulance to fetch them, and also to make arrangements for the burial of his dead. For some unexplained reason, the English ambulance did not arrive till the following morning. We stayed on the mountain until sunset, and then went down to the laager.
President Steyn was ill of a most serious complaint, caused possibly by the mental and physical sufferings which he had undergone; but with an indomitable resolution which makes one forget and forgive the fatuous policy which brought him and his State to such a pass, he still appeared in his Cape cart at the laager of the faithful remnant of his commandos.
The position was a bad one as the ground rose on each side of the river; the bush offered cover to the attack, and the only cover available to the defence was the almost dry bed of the river. He threw out screens and proceeded to entrench and form a laager; while the screens faced in the open the fire of the enemy under cover in the bush on the high ground.
This road was, I believe, made for military purposes; but it was very useful to us, and our wagons were safely got away by it. Commandant D. Joubert, of the Carolina Commando, then sent a message asking for reinforcements for the Pretoria laager, situated to the north-west of Ladysmith.
And the morrow did. In the grey dawn two hatless and bootless young men came stumbling down into the laager. "The British have taken the hill!" Startled, we gazed at Spion Kop's top only five hundred yards away, but invisible, covered by the thick mist as with a veil. The enemy were there, we knew it; they could not see us as yet, but the mist would soon clear away, and then....
North of the river, some cannon were placed in advanced works, three-quarters of a mile from the rifle pits, between which and the river, in the open, was the "laager" of ammunition and other wagons.
My laager was about 20 miles away from the head laager; the enemy had passed through Onderbroekspruit, and was pushing on with all possible speed to relieve Ladysmith, so that I now stood in an oblique line with the enemy's rear. I sent out my carts to the south-west, going round Ladysmith in the direction of Modderspruit.
General Meyer pitched quoits with his men, General Botha swapped tobacco with any one of his burghers, and General Smuts and one of his officers held the whist championship of their laager. Rarely a burgher touched his hat before speaking to an officer, but he invariably shook hands with him at meeting and parting.
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