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We rode from there some four or five hours into the Free State to spy the movements of the enemy. From Dewetsdrift we went, under Commandant Boshoff, to Schoemansdrift, Venterskroon, and Lindequidrift. Our division formed part of the escort for the guns. Our route lay through beautiful scenery.
Field-Cornet Van Zulch, who with Commandant Boshoff, took the officers to Machadodorp, and who is at present a fellow-prisoner, tells me that three officers Colonel Roberts, Lieutenants Davis and Lyall and 210 soldiers of the Lincolnshire Regiment were taken prisoners, and that four companies of the Scots Greys had early that morning escaped with two guns.
Whenever we, as the attacking party, made prisoners, they always declared that they had known all about our plan of attack probably to discourage us with the thought that through the treachery of our own people the enemy always knew all about our movements. For a long way we followed the same road that we had taken with Commandant Boshoff to Rustenburg.
We rode with him in the track of our comrades, who had taken a great circuit round Rustenburg. We arrived safely at Zwartkoppen, and immediately joined Commandant Boshoff, who had just returned from Machadodorp. The Commandants now followed General de la Rey. We came up with his commando to the west of Rustenburg, where he had surrounded a party of the enemy.
They say that the khaki prisoners whom we left on the reef remained there all night, and came down the following morning with little white flags made of the bandages that a soldier always carries with him, tied to twigs. Commandant Boshoff had been ordered to take the prisoners to Machadodorp.
Six of the 'hands-uppers' told me that the whole month we were camped at Tafelkop they had hidden from us in their bedrooms so as not to be obliged to break their oath of neutrality. I came across an old acquaintance of mine in the lager Phister, who had served under Commandant Boshoff. I knew that he had been wounded in the leg at the Battle of Stompies and taken by our men to Rietpan.
Commandant Boshoff, however, was immediately sent to Olifantsnek, as the enemy had left Rustenburg and the pass was clear. Our men were most changeable in their moods. The slightest favourable tidings raised their spirits, but any unfavourable news made their courage sink into their shoes. There was much talk about the retreating movement of the enemy.
But Pretorius, with whom was Paul Kruger, found, like Dr. Jameson, that he had reckoned without his host. When intelligence of this invasion reached Bloemfontein, President Boshoff issued a proclamation declaring martial law in force throughout the Free State, and calling out burghers for the defence of the country.
We accidentally met our former Commandant, Boshoff, who told us that he was on his way with ten men to join General de la Rey, who had gone in the direction of Rustenburg to cut the enemy's line of communication between Mafeking and Pretoria, and we very willingly joined him, after a delightful rest of ten days.
This little episode made my blood circulate, so that I very soon also was in the land of dreams. As the burghers chased all the game on ahead of the lager, the President and Commandant Boshoff agreed to go in advance, so as to have a chance of seeing the numerous kinds of wild buck and larger game. I went with them.
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