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Updated: May 1, 2025
On nearing the high Tugela mountains we heard more and more distinctly the constant rattling of bullets, interrupted by the roar of the cannon and the bom-bom-bom of our saucy bomb-Maxim, that made our hearts expand and those of the enemy shrink. As we raced on to the foot of the mountains, the bullets that the enemy were sending over the mountains to find the Boers raised the dust around us.
While we were busy inspanning we heard the enemy's bomb-Maxim, and before the waggons had forded the dangerous drift of the donga near Bodenstein's farm the bullets flew over our heads from the bult behind us. The women fled into the house and the burghers retreated as fast as they could.
It was a good thing that the Commandant made us travel so fast, for we had only just outspanned at Pienaars River the following morning when the khakies' bomb-Maxim began firing at the outposts of General Grobler's Waterberg commando, which was stationed there.
In the morning we were awakened by the sound of the Vickar-Maxim or the "pom-pom" as the English call it, or "bomb-Maxim" as the Boers call it. By any name it was a remarkable gun and the most demoralizing of any of the smaller pieces which have been used in this campaign.
We all also recognised the impossibility of checking the enemy, as we ran the risk of shooting our own men and women; so our only chance lay in flight. The horses of the enemy were soon 'done up, and they had to satisfy themselves with our guns two large ones that we had taken from them at Colenso, a damaged bomb-Maxim and several smaller ones.
"Our country first, you know." That afternoon we joined a small commando lying near the railway between Potchefstroom and Frederikstad. It numbered barely a hundred men, but they had with them a bomb-Maxim and a Krupp. At midnight we got orders to march for the hills near Frederikstad, where we arrived at dawn.
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