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Updated: May 9, 2025
I ordered the burghers to retreat in the direction of Kroonstad, for by now they had all fled from Roodepoort and Honingkopjes a name which, since that day, has never sounded very sweet to me. During the morning I received a report informing me that there were large stores at Kroonstad belonging to the English Commissariat, and that there was only a handful of troops to protect them.
I, in the meanwhile, would make my way with a Krupp to the west side of the line, and having found a place of concealment near Roodepoort, would be ready to fall upon the English as soon as I heard that the other party had opened fire on them from the east. But my plan was to come to nothing.
This did not have the desired effect of inspiring terror in the burghers who were under my command at Honingkopjes. Then the enemy began to move. I saw masses of their cavalry making for a piece of rising ground to the north of Roodepoort. As the burghers there were hidden from me, I was unable to observe from where I stood the effect of this flank movement.
Knowing that if they were able to give way and to retreat along the river we should have no means of discovering the fact until it was too late and we were surrounded, I came to the conclusion that it was essential for me to go to Roodepoort to assure myself that the cavalry had not yet got round.
I rode off, and discovered that the English were already so close to our troops at Roodepoort that fighting with small arms had begun. I had just reached an eminence between Roodepoort and the Honingkopjes when I saw that the burghers in the position furthest towards the north-west were beginning to flee. This was exactly what I had feared would happen.
But it was most important that no suspicion of the danger which threatened us should be aroused in the burghers anything calculated to weaken their resistance was to be avoided on such an occasion. Accordingly I merely told them that I was going to see how affairs were progressing at Roodepoort, and that in the meantime they must hold their position.
With this in view, I sent the Commandants, when night had fallen, to Roodewal, each with two waggons, and ordered them to bring it to my farm at Roodepoort, which was three miles away from the railway bridge over the Rhenoster River.
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