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Updated: June 3, 2025
He loved his home more than the laagers at the front, and he took advantage of every opportunity to return to his home and family. He lusted not for battle, and he seldom engaged in one unless he firmly believed that success depended partly upon his individual presence.
But Cronje would not listen to me. The presence of women in our laager was a great hindrance to me in my work. Indeed, I opened a correspondence with the Government on the matter, and begged them to forbid it. But here again my efforts were unavailing. Later on, we shall see in what a predicament the Republican laagers were placed through the toleration of this irregularity.
While the greater part of the army lay around besieged Ladysmith large numbers of women were in the laagers, and they were continually busying themselves with the preparation of food for their relatives and with the care of the sick and wounded.
Presently he saw the Boers rounding up their cattle and driving them off to the north. Next they caught and began to saddle their horses. The great white tilted waggons of the various laagers filed along the road around the eastern end of Bulwana. Lastly, up went a pair of shears over 'Long Tom, and at this he descended to the earth with the good news that the enemy were off at last.
The Boers did not have sentries or outposts as they are understood in trained armies, but they had what was called a "Brandwacht," or fire-guard, which consisted of a hundred men or more who were supposed to take positions at a certain distance from the laagers, and remain there until daybreak.
The Boers felt that their system of warfare was the perfect one, and they scoffed at the suggestion that European officers might teach them anything in the military line. Every foreign officer was welcomed in Pretoria and in the laagers, but he was asked to enlist as a private, or ordinary burgher.
High on the hill-ranges in the South more chains of red sparks burned ... he knew them for the watch-fires of the Boer outposts, and the raised edges of the basin East and West were set thickly with similar twinkling jewels where the laagers were; while smaller groups shone nearer, marking the situation of isolated vedettes.
No solid Dutchman welcomed the idea of soaring skywards in a multitude of infinitesimal fragments, in company with other Free Staters or sons of the Transvaal Republic similarly reduced. No more boasts on the part of Brounckers, General in command of those massed, menacing, united laagers on the Border, seven miles from Gueldersdorp as the crow flew.
Fraser and Metelka, who had spent the night in cooking for the officers, which fact had specially delighted Colonel Rhodes, who told me my maid was a "charming creature." But this pleasant conversation was interrupted by a message, saying that, as the Boer laagers were as intact as yesterday, the artillery were going to bombard them at once.
"Why should I; don't we pay 'Tommy' to do that for us?" "Perhaps we do; but, concerning those Boer laagers you have been telling us about: where, when, and how did you see them; what was the name of the place; who was the Boer general in command, or the field cornet, or landdrost?
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