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Updated: June 11, 2025
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.
On the trek from Ventersdorp to Potchefstroom I discovered him lying on his back in the blazing sun on an open trolley, near to Potchefstroom; he shouted to me that he had had nothing to eat during the whole of the eighteen hours' trek. In Potchefstroom our trolley, with the twelve 'hands-uppers, the ambulance doctor, and myself, was sent in the direction of the prison.
All this was on penalty of having their houses burnt down and their cattle and property confiscated. Sometimes a brother or other relative of these "hands-uppers" would call on them.
The men in the neighbourhood of Tafelkop were mostly 'hands-uppers, so we confiscated their property, and their grain and cattle we took for the use of the lager, but we always left sufficient for the use of the women and children. The future of a farm on which a lager had camped for some time was dark indeed, for even the grain in the fields was destroyed by the demon of war.
Not another word was said, and the noble trio turned on their heels and took their white flag back to Pretoria. Whether Botha was right in allowing these "hands-uppers" to return, is a question I do not care to discuss, but many burghers had their own opinion about it.
And for the Kaffirs to be eventually allowed to vote? The men who were attached to their families and farms, but preferred losing all to becoming 'hands-uppers, were unanimous in declaring Kitchener's conditions unacceptable, and all were ready to fight to the bitter end.
It will be seen how these would-be "hands-uppers" were caught in a little trap prepared by some officers of my staff.
The commandant of the Bethel burghers afterwards told me that during the charge his kaffir servant got among the lancers and called upon them to "Hands up!" The unsophisticated native had heard so much about "hands up," and "hands-uppers," that he thought the entire English language consisted of those two simple words, and when one lancer shouted to him "Hands up," he echoed "Hands up."
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