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Here he obtained confirmation of the Bronker's Spruit disaster, and listened with set face and blazing eyes to the tale of treachery and death which was, as he said, with a parallel in the annals of civilised war. But, after all, what does it matter? a little square of graves at Bronker's Spruit, a few more widows and a hundred or so of orphans.
It looked as though earth and heaven had been steeped in blood; and, fresh as John was from the sight of the dead driver, his ears yet tingling with the tale of Bronker's Spruit, it is not to be wondered at that the suggestive sight oppressed him, seated in that lonely waste, with no company except the melancholy "kakara-kakara" of an old black koran hidden away somewhere in the grass.
"Then let us keep the damned preaching Englishman till to-morrow." "Pray let me go on, gentlemen," said John, still in his mildest voice. "I am wanted to preach the Word at Pretoria, and to watch by the wounded and dying." "Yes, yes," said the first man, "there will soon be plenty of wounded and dying there. They will all be like the rooibaatjes at Bronker's Spruit. Lord, what a sight that was!
There was a rumour of the Bronker's Spruit disaster and other rumours of the investment of Pretoria, and of the advance of large bodies of Boers to take possession of the pass over the Drakensberg, known as Laing's Nek, but there was no definite intelligence. "You won't get into Pretoria," said one melancholy man, "so it's no use trying.
The Boers have declared war on the English Government, and they have eaten up the rooibaatjes at Bronker's Spruit, near Middleburg. Joubert shot them all there the day before yesterday." "What!" shouted John, letting his pipe fall in his astonishment. "Stop, though, that must be a lie. You say near Middleburg, the day before yesterday: that would be December 20. When did you hear this?"
The news of the outbreak, followed as it was by that of the Bronker's Spruit massacre, and Captain Elliot's murder, created a great excitement in Natal. All available soldiers were at once despatched up country, together with a naval brigade, who, on arrival at Newcastle, brought up the strength of the Imperial troops of all arms to about a thousand men.
Then, a day or two later, Conductor Egerton came limping into Pretoria from the scene of the disaster at Bronker's Spruit, with the colours of the 94th Regiment tied round his middle, and such a tale to tell that the blood went to her heart and seemed to stagnate there as she listened. After that there was confusion worse confounded.
At one o'clock on Sunday, the 20th December, the column was marching along about a mile and a half from a place known as Bronker's Spruit, and thirty-eight miles from Pretoria, when suddenly a large number of mounted Boers were seen in loose formation on the left side of the road.
I heard say, rightly or wrongly, that that fat-faced man with the tooth shot two wounded soldiers through the head after the fight at Bronker's Spruit, and I know no good of the other.
"And at Ingogo?" "Six hundred and twenty." "And at Majuba?" "One thousand." "Then that makes two thousand five hundred men; yes, and the rest were finished at Bronker's Spruit. Nephews, that rooibaatje there," pointing to John, "is one of the last men left in the British army."
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