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I had the following Commandants under me: Du Preez, of Hoopstad; Grobler, of Fauresmith; D. Lubbe, of Jacobsdal; Piet Fourie, of Bloemfontein; J. Kok and Jordaan, of Winburg; Ignatius Ferreira, of Ladybrand; Paul De Villiers, of Ficksburg; Du Plessis, and, subsequently, Commandant Diederiks, of Boshof. The English had entrenched themselves at the Modder River, we at Magersfontein.
The details of the elopement were duly arranged; it was to take place on the following Saturday night, after the bar had closed. The lady's absence would thus not be noticed, the bar being closed on Sunday. By Monday the lovers would be over the Boshof Hills and far away across the wide plains of the Orange Free State.
Such a retreat after a lost battle and under the pressure of pursuit would be ruin to his army. He may move off by Boshof, but that would be impracticable unless the start were made soon after the first news of the British advance. Probably his best course would be to retire before he can be attacked to Barkly, on the right bank of the Vaal.
The Transvaal Government provided a daily ration of bully beef and groceries, and the prisoners were allowed to purchase from the local storekeeper, a Mr. Boshof, practically everything they cared to order, except alcoholic liquors.
Boshof, at any rate, provided a welcome change from all this. It is a pretty little town of greensward streets and clear brooks; of white cottages embowered in trees; of rose-gardens and orchards; rather like a remote country town in Ireland poor and pretty and sleepy.
Now if Lord Methuen could have sent out a light column westward from Boshof to the rear of the laager, and also held the enemy in front with the remainder of his force, he might with good fortune have bagged the whole Boer force, which he knew from my information to be weak in guns.
On the 18th of September, construction of defence works began, reports of movements by the burghers of the Free State as well as by Transvaalers being received, and arousing apprehension of a sudden attack. On the 27th of September, an officer of the garrison, by personal observation at Boshof in the Free State, ascertained that the burghers of the latter had been ordered out.
That was what we had all been longing to do, and it was with a long face that a staff officer said, "Back to Boshof." So back we started. Our column was nearly three miles long, and just as the tail of it was leaving camp and the head of it, like a snake's, beginning to curl round Spitz Kop a lofty cone-shaped kopje beside the road pom pom pom pom! suddenly sounded from where?
They and darkness finished the engagement, and we went on to Boshof, arriving there just as night closed in. And, in spite of it all, order emerged from the chaos; brigade signals flashing, camps pitched, pickets posted to keep watch over us all night, fires lighted, stations allotted; and presently "last post" and "lights out," and in spite of the bellowing oxen, rest.
Some explanation is needed of Lord Methuen's appearance upon the central scene of warfare, his division having, when last described, been at Boshof, not far from Kimberley, where early in April he fought the successful action which led to the death of Villebois. Thence he proceeded along the Vaal and then south to Kroonstad, arriving there on May 28th.
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