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Updated: April 30, 2025
If the English were pursuing me, they would have to leave Commandant Kritzinger and Captain Scheepers, who would thus be able to cross the Orange River. These two officers, however, were not left entirely in peace. While they rested for a time near Zastron, in order to give their horses a chance of recovering their strength, there came a division of Brabant's Horse to pay them a visit.
I thought it wise to give Cronje this advice, on account of the women and children in our camps, who might easily prove the cause of disaster. When Scheepers returned he told me what reply General Cronje had made. It is from no lack of respect for the General, whom I hold in the highest honour as a hero incapable of fear, that I set down what he said.
Theron, with a smaller band, was also in the Uniondale and Willowmore district, approaching close to the sea in the Mossel Bay direction, but being headed off by Kavanagh. Scheepers turned in the direction of Cape Town, but swerved aside at Montagu, and moved northwards towards Touws River. So far the British had succeeded in driving and injuring, but never in destroying, the Boer bands.
"I wish the British would catch and castrate every one of them, so that they may be old women in reality." His railing did not accelerate the approach of the loiterers, and it was long after sunrise when we finally made a start for Heilbron nine miles distant. When we neared the town Scheepers, myself, and another went forward to reconnoitre.
Commandant Kritzinger and Captain Scheepers also assured me that the sympathies of the Colonial burghers were strongly with us. Like every other right-minded man, I had expected this to be the case, for "blood is thicker than water."
Smuts had entrusted the inflammatory work in the midlands to local leaders before he left the district, and now set himself to trespass beyond the furthest point reached by Scheepers, and to make a bold entry into the extreme S.W. corner of the Cape Colony. Early in November he penetrated into the Ceres district, where he was less than 100 miles in a direct line from Capetown.
To make the best of a bad job I sent Commandant Kritzinger and Captain Scheepers, with their three hundred men, to march in the direction of Rouxville with orders that as soon as the Orange River became fordable, they were to cross it into Cape Colony without delay. I entertained no doubt that they would succeed.
To lighten it a little I made the following arrangement: I sent Captain Pretorius, with a small detachment, in advance of General Fourie, to prepare the road for him, and Captain Scheepers to do the same for Judge Hertzog. The first had to say: "Hold yourselves in readiness! Oom Pieter! is coming." The other had to say: "Be prepared! The Rechter is at hand!" All went well.
Here Captain Scheepers, Captain Fouché and myself left the main body and went with our commando, consisting of about 300 men in all, in the direction of Rouxville, where, on the 13th of December, we captured 150 of the 2nd Brabants, who were sent to and for us.
It was evidently going to be an exciting adventure, and I thanked him warmly for having selected me to take part in the expedition. I then went and hunted up Scheepers, whom I found in his tent. This is the same Scheepers who later operated in Cape Colony, and whom Chamberlain has taken such a dislike to.
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