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Amongst all this worry of reorganising our commandos and weeding out the traitors we were allowed little rest by the enemy, and once we suddenly found them marching up from Helvetia in our direction. A smart body of men, chiefly composed of Lydenburg and Middelburg men, and under the command of a newly-appointed officer, Captain Du Toit, went to meet the enemy between Bakendorp and Dullstroom.
At Durban he had fitted himself out in a regal way with two wagons, full teams, and some spare oxen, and trekked to Pretoria where he had arrived a few days before. Now he was ready to start for the Lydenburg district and look for those buffalo. "But," I said, "the buffalo probably long ago departed.
Swaziland was, in fact, an unknown region. But rumor was rife as to fabulously rich deposits of gold in the tracts lying to the east and south-east of Lydenburg. There were, needless to say, no maps of the country in question. But under such circumstances the less known of any given region, the greater its fascination.
A memorial was read from Lydenburg, suggesting that ten years' residence in the country and obedience to the law be the qualification. This was signed by about a hundred burghers.
My two professional scouts, Jordaan and Mellema, had also reconnoitred the village from another direction, and had brought back confirmatory information and the news that Lydenburg was occupied by about 2,000 British soldiers, consisting of the Manchester Regiment and the First Royal Irish, together with a corps of "hands-uppers" under the notorious Harber.
He has served me in good stead, and now lies buried, faithful little heart, in a Lydenburg ditch. In my retreat Sunday River had to be crossed. It was deep, but deep or not, we had to get through it. We were going at such a pace that we nearly tumbled down the banks. The precipice must have been very steep; all I remember is finding myself in the water with Blesman by my side.
A guard was kept upon the frontier to prevent the return of refugees and the smuggling of ammunition, while General Kitchener, the brother of the Sirdar, broke up a few small Boer laagers in the neighbourhood of Lydenburg. Smith-Dorrien guarded the line at Belfast, and on two occasions, November 1st and November 6th, he made aggressive movements against the enemy.
To prevent the enemy escaping to the north or to the south, and to impale him upon the stakes of the Portuguese frontier, Lord Roberts pushed forward three columns; one under Pole-Carew to follow the railway towards Komati Poort, another under French to march towards Barberton, and a third under Buller to occupy the Lydenburg district; to which Botha had gone after the battle of Bergendal, and which if held by him would leave in the possession of the Boers the best line of retreat from the railway to the northern Transvaal.
Standerton, Pretoria, Potchefstroom, Lydenburg, Wakkerstroom, Rustenburg, and Marabastad were all invested and all held out until the end of the war. In the open country the troops were less fortunate. At Bronkhorst Spruit a small British force was taken by surprise and shot down without harm to their antagonists.
To the south of Lydenburg, where a section of my commando under General Muller was operating, the enemy kept us very busy, for they had one or more columns engaged. We, to the north of Lydenburg, had a much calmer time of it than our brethren to the south of that place, for there the British were pursuing their policy of exhausting our people with unsparing hand.
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