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On November 26th Clements was back at Krugersdorp again with cattle and prisoners. In the early days of December he was moving northwards once more, where a serious disaster awaited him. Before narrating the circumstances connected with the Battle of Nooitgedacht there is one incident which occurred in this same region which should be recounted.
We spent the first weeks of September at Godwan River and Nooitgedacht Station, near the Delagoa Bay railway, and had a fairly quiet time of it.
The country is peculiarly mountainous and broken, and it was held by the veteran De la Rey and a numerous body of irreconcilable Boers. Here in July we had encountered a check at Uitval's Nek, in December Clements had met a more severe one at Nooitgedacht, while shortly afterwards Cunningham had been repulsed at Middelfontein, and the Light Horse cut up at Naauwpoort.
Although our officers were beginning to see the advisability of keeping their plans secret, we were able to guess that we were going to attack General Clements' camp, an hour's ride further east at Nooitgedacht particularly as the chances of success, in case of an eventual attack, were being discussed by some of the officers. The general opinion was that Clements' force was 5,000 strong.
Outside Nooitgedacht I found four military doctors with a field ambulance. "Does this officer belong to the Red Cross?" I asked. "No," was the answer, "he is only with us quite unofficially as a sympathetic friend." "I regret," said I, "that I cannot allow this thing; you have come through our lines without my permission; this officer no doubt is a spy."
Clements, having made his way once more to the Magaliesberg range, had pitched his camp at a place called Nooitgedacht not to be confused with the post upon the Delagoa Railway at which the British prisoners had been confined.
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.
Whatever might have been our optimism before, however little inclination the burghers might have felt to surrender, however great the firmness of the officers, and their resolve to keep the beloved "Vierkleur" flying, scenes like those at Nooitgedacht, and again at Nelspruit, were enough to make even the strongest and most energetic lose all courage.
The Moat was well provided with corn, and asked for our protection. We stayed over a day on the gray ridge. When the enemy advanced towards us on the day following, General De la Rey had taken up his position near Nooitgedacht, and so formed the left wing.
Some eighty miles separate Warm Baths from Nooitgedacht, and it seems strange that our Intelligence Department should have remained in ignorance of so large a movement. General Broadwood's 2nd Cavalry Brigade had been stationed to the north of Magaliesberg, some twelve miles westward of Clements, and formed the next link in the long chain of British forces.
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