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Updated: June 4, 2025
And as we were retreating at our ease an old man galloped towards us and pointed out that we were retreating in the wrong direction, as the enemy had captured our whole lager. He had never in his life seen so many khakies. They seemed to be on all sides of us. The only outlet for us was in the direction of Heidelberg.
Once when it cleared up for a few hours we got the order to attack the town, but it began to rain again, and that night we had to keep our positions in the intense cold, without any covering. Fortunately, the enemy abandoned their camp that night, and when we looked down upon the town next morning the khakies had vanished.
Some of the khakies had fallen from the high cliffs, where they had to lie unburied like the soldiers on Amajuba in 1881. We led our horses to the opening of the kloof, and then galloped into camp under the thundering noise of the shells that the enemy were firing at us from the distance. There was no control possible among the burghers.
They passed by me several times, but at last I was discovered, and had to give up my beloved Mauser without a chance of defending myself. My two companions escaped. This happened on April 3, 1901. Fortunately, I fell into the hands of decent khakies who did not insist on examining my old veld-shoes that I was using as a money-box, so I was able to keep my precious four pounds.
The khakies had the good positions, and we had good cover behind the rocks on the mountain slope. In such a case he is no match for us. We went on a few hundred paces over pretty level ground, and then looked down upon the camp at the foot of the mountain, which consisted of several hundreds of tents and many waggons.
The cows taken by the enemy also made their way back to their calves that khaki stupidly left behind, and so the little children could again have milk. Even the bees were not left undisturbed; but the bee is an enemy of any nasty-smelling thing, and therefore the dirty, perspiring khakies got many a sting, and the honey usually remained in the hives.
They did not appear, however, and I concluded that they had camped at Rietfontein, so I walked my horse to the farm of Mrs. Jansen, one of the few hospitable women in that sparsely inhabited country. She hastily informed me that the khakies had been there. The eight burghers soon returned, among them a young man who was nursing a wounded man on the farm.
We felt that there our safety lay, and the enthusiasm of the commando was heightened by the desire to celebrate Paardekraal Day in Krugersdorp on December 15. As a sailor longs for the sea, so we longed for a meeting with the khakies when we left for the Magalies Mountains in the beginning of December. Our commando was light and mobile, with provisions for a short time only.
We had enough to do, also, as we had to keep a sharp look-out, and we were in constant danger, but not at all afraid of the patrols of khakies, which, being small in number and without their guns, were pretty harmless. We advanced almost parallel to the Magalies Mountains, that stretch from Pretoria to Rustenburg, until we came to the neighbourhood of Selikatsnek.
Malherbe, my brother, and I formed a sort of comradeship under Corporal Botman or, to put it simply, we were 'chums. At Warmbad we heard many interesting things about the khakies, who had stayed there nineteen days on their hunt after De Wet. We could not understand why they destroyed the bathing-houses, unless it were to deprive our wounded of the chance of recovery.
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