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It was a lively little nag, and all my weariness passed away as I felt it bound between my knees. Delange remained here, and my comrade and I continued our journey alone, making for Vrede. "There's a Jew a few miles from here," said the farmer as he bade us good luck, "whom we suspect of treason. You should try and trap him and take him with you to Vrede." Towards dusk we reached the Jew's store.
A large number of burghers from Harrismith and a small part of the Vrede commando, although they had already made good their escape, rode quietly from their farms into Harrismith, and there surrendered to General Sir Hector Macdonald. One could gnash one's teeth to think that a nation should so readily rush to its own ruin! I am Driven into the Transvaal
De Wet's delirious harangue had not exhausted its nine-days' life as a masterpiece of unconscious humour when General Botha left Pretoria for the Free State on November 9. Again, I am not concerned with the highly complex motives which prompted the veteran Dutch General to make his delightful "Five Bob Outrage" speech and other things at Vrede. Flogging dead horses is a useless job, anyway.
The most vigorous operations fell to the lot of General Elliot, who worked over the northern and north-eastern district, which still contained a large number of fighting burghers. In May and June Elliot moved across to Vrede and afterwards down the eastern frontier of the Colony, joining hands at last with Rundle at Harrismith. He then worked his way back to Kroonstad through Reitz and Lindley.
I did not think that I should have any difficulty in convincing the commanders of Harrismith and Vrede that the best thing would be to do away with these unnecessary impediments, because, shortly before, the English themselves had given me a text to preach from, by taking away a great number of waggons from Commandant Hasebroek at Winburg and at Vet River.
He traversed in November from north to south the same country which he had already so painfully traversed from south to north. With occasional small actions he moved about from Vrede to Reitz, and so to Bethlehem and Harrismith.
Nearer and nearer these two great divisions approached each other, until at last they stretched without any break from the Bethlehem-Lindley to the Frankfort-Vrede line of blockhouses. On the 21st of February the whole column moved towards Vrede and Harrismith.
"I want nothing, nothing but this happiness," he thought, staring at the bone button of the bell in the space between the windows, and picturing to himself Anna just as he had seen her last time. "And as I go on, I love her more and more. Here's the garden of the Vrede Villa. Whereabouts will she be? Where? How?
This division was to start on the 16th, and marching to the north of Bethlehem, was to continue advancing in that direction until it fell in with the commandos from Harrismith and Vrede under Commander-in-Chief Hattingh. It would then operate, under his directions, in the north-eastern districts.
He and his wife looked at each other, evidently feeling that some danger was threatening them. "Sir," he said at last, speaking with an effort, "I have seen no Boers." "Is this the road to Vrede?" "Yes," he faltered. "Thanks. Good-night," and we rode away. It might be easy to shoot a traitor in cold blood, but to try and trap a man into uttering his own condemnation seemed too cruel.