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This main Transvaal body consisted of the commando of Pretoria, which comprised 1800 men, and those of Heidelberg, Middelburg, Krugersdorp, Standerton, Wakkerstroom, and Ermelo, with the State Artillery, an excellent and highly organised body who were provided with the best guns that have ever been brought on to a battlefield.
He acknowledged that he had ordered six farmhouses to be destroyed: 'The following circumstances induced me to give the order. We marched from Volksrust to Standerton practically unopposed.
At sunrise the others returned, saying that the Standerton laager had moved much higher up, and that the Johannesburg laager was the next on the list. They accordingly marched in that direction, laying the cable as they went, past precipices and over mountain gorges. I followed on, testing and repairing, very tedious work in the burning sun.
Telling the others to go on, I turned back and carefully tested the line, eventually finding the fault at sundown. Reporting my whereabouts to the office, I was ordered to follow the working party as rapidly as possible, the chief adding that it was especially desired to have communication the same night with the Standerton laager, where the others would have arrived by this time.
Small wonder, therefore, that the War had become a one-sided affair. On the 20th of May, 1901, I seized an opportunity of attacking General Plumer on his way from Bethel to Standerton. We had effected a junction with Commandant Mears and charged the enemy, and but for their having with them a number of Boer families we would have succeeded in capturing their whole laager.
"At Standerton?" "No," he said; "I am afraid that is more than I could manage for you, unless you can persuade the English officers there to surrender. Do not trouble, I assure you you shall both sleep well to-night," and he smiled, a somewhat terrifying smile, as Jess thought. "But how about this drift, Mr. Muller?" said John. "Is it safe?
When they were well on to the plain they halted to consider their route, and, turning, Jess pointed to the long lines of vultures descending to feast on their would-be murderers. If they went down the river it would lead them to Standerton, and there they would be safe if they could slip into the town, which was garrisoned by English.
In this post cart I travelled for three days and two nights by way of Richmond, Heidelburg, Standerton, where cattle rearing and horse breeding is successfully carried on, and Newcastle, which will be remembered as having been the base of operations during the Boer war, and also as the place where the final treaty of Peace was drawn up and signed by the joint Commission, to Eland's Laagte, the present terminus of the Natal railway, thirteen miles beyond Ladysmith.
The burghers were very anxious about our lager. We had left it on Brown's farm on the Wilgeriver, when our commando advanced towards Boesmanskop. How the lager escaped I do not know, for we heard that the enemy were advancing from all sides Standerton, Middelburg, etc. But we reached it in safety the very night that we slipped through the enemy's cordon.
Shortly after our arrival at Standerton our telegraph line was cut on several nights following, and attempts were made to damage the military line by placing dynamite cartridges with detonators attached upon it. These attempts were all made on or in close vicinity to the estates above named.
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