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Near Krokodil River, on Carlyle's Farm, President Steyn and his attendants separated from De Wet's commando, and went in the direction of Zoutpan to Machadodorp. We were about seventy-five men in all. The little commando consisted of carts, a few trolleys, and horsemen on strong, well-conditioned horses. The Free Staters nearly all had one or two spare horses.
In intense darkness we were firing at each other from time to time, so that it was not advisable to continue our operations under the circumstances, and at daybreak I told all my commandos to desist. The attacks on Wonderfontein, Pan Station, Dalmanutha, and Machadodorp had failed.
It led across Witrand or Bakenkop; the commandos were therefore obliged to follow it, and had to do this at night time, for if they had passed the Bakenkop by day they would have exposed themselves to the enemy's artillery fire from the Machadodorp and Zwartkoppies garrisons.
As a rule, some official or other made a nice little commission out of these transactions, and many burghers and officers expressed their displeasure and disgust at these matters; but so it was, and so it remained. That same night we marched from Machadodorp to Helvetia, where we halted while a commando was appointed to guard the railway at Waterval Boven.
They say that the khaki prisoners whom we left on the reef remained there all night, and came down the following morning with little white flags made of the bandages that a soldier always carries with him, tied to twigs. Commandant Boshoff had been ordered to take the prisoners to Machadodorp.
The bridge had already been mined, the guns placed in position, and everything made ready to give Pole-Carew and the Guards a worthy reception; but fate decided otherwise, and General Pienaar, with some two thousand men, crossed the frontier, needless to say with what deep regret thus reducing by one-fifth our forces in the field, a loss which would have been avoided had Steyn's advice been taken and guerilla warfare begun after Machadodorp.
Of the Boer attacks upon British posts to which allusion has been made, that upon Belfast, in the early morning of January 7th, appears to have been very gallantly and even desperately pushed. On the same date a number of smaller attacks, which may have been meant simply as diversions, were made upon Wonderfontein, Nooitgedacht, Wildfontein, Pan, Dalmanutha, and Machadodorp.
Within a few days we had established a sort of small camp near to headquarters. We had plenty to do at this time building fortresses and digging trenches for the guns. This of course ought to have been done when we were still at Donkerhoek by officers the Commandant-General had sent to Machadodorp for the purpose.
Our retreat to Machadodorp was very much like previous experiences of the kind; we were continually expecting to be cut off from the railway by flanking movements and this we had to prevent because we had placed one of our big guns on the rails in an armour-clad railway carriage.
The President and party enter the carriage, the engine whistles, and the train speeds down to Waterval Onder, where Paul Kruger and his advisers are impatiently awaiting its arrival. The battle of Machadodorp was expected to A take place at any moment, and the general feeling was that this fight should decide the campaign, the more so as the issue was confidently awaited by us.
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