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We enjoyed their discomfiture in a measure, for, with all reverence for true religion, it must be confessed that many of these gentry thought psalm-singing all that was required of them, and did not hesitate to leave their less "elect" brethren to bear the brunt of the fighting. After breakfast I walked down to the telegraph line connecting Heilbron and Frankfort, which ran past this point.
We had passed fifteen days upon the road, and traversed a distance, roughly estimated, of two hundred and fifty miles. Since leaving Vienna, we had walked five hundred miles. On one occasion only did we march more than thirty miles in the day. This was between Stutgard and Heilbron.
I allowed those from Bethlehem to leave me in order to carry on operations in their part of the country; the same likewise with the Winburgers and the valiant Commandant Hasebroek, while the burghers of Vrede and Harrismith had gone home. I had therefore with me only a small contingent from those districts, in addition to the burghers from Heilbron.
Acting up to his original design, Delme passed through the capitals of Bavaria and Wurtemburg; and quickly traversing the picturesque country round Heilbron, reached the romantic Heidelberg, washed by the Neckar.
I heard also from officers of Heilbron, Vrede, and Bethlehem, whom I met, on the evening of the 14th of May, at Wolvehoek Station, that the English columns had operated in their districts on the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th. My order was that my officers should not operate, but should retreat, if the enemy should unexpectedly operate on the 11th.
De Wet, who on January 10 had had a hurried interview with Steyn near Reitz, was lying at Elandskop between Heilbron and Reitz, and again concentrating his scattered burghers and planning an escape with them to the south across the Kroonstad-Bethlehem blockhouse line. Mears, on his way to rejoin De Wet, ran into a column under Byng, to whom he lost the guns captured by De Wet at Groen Kop.
I have often been present at the death-bed and at the burial of those who have been nearest to my heart father, mother, brother and friend but the grief which I felt on those occasions was not to be compared with what I now underwent at the burial of my Nation! It was at Reitz that the commandos of Vrede, Harrismith, Heilbron and Bethlehem laid down their arms.
The net result of the morning's work was the knowledge that Hamilton was leaving Heilbron at that very moment, and leaving it ungarrisoned.
Colvile believed that his presence at Heilbron on May 29 was imperatively required in connexion with the advance, and, although very weak in mounted troops, he pushed on from Ventersburg without waiting for Spragge. On May 26 he reached Lindley after some resistance outside the town, and next day resumed his march to Heilbron, which, though checked on the way, he reached on the appointed day.
And, accordingly, when General Michal Prinsloo came near the Liebenbergsvlei, on the road between Reitz and Heilbron, he met a strong force of the enemy which had come from Kroonstad. The English then had a taste of what it was like to be under the fire of our artillery; and so well did the gunners do their work that the enemy were forced to retreat.
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