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Updated: September 18, 2025


He described how the Boers approached the fort waving a white flag, how a corporal went out to them, and was told that they wished to speak with an officer, how Captain Miers rode out alone, and then: 'As soon as the officer had gone but a short distance on the far side of the spruit, the Boer with the white flag advanced to meet him; the officer also continued to advance till he came up with the blackguard.

"Could you live here, do you think, Christina?" asked David, smiling, and she smiled back at him and made no other answer. There was no need for one, indeed, for no Boer could pass such a place. It was a rise, a little rand, flowing out from a tall kopje, grass and bush to its crown, and at its skirts ran a wide spruit of clear water.

The patter of the Boer rifles at the spruit increased in intensity and the jets of brown dust became more numerous. The cavalrymen leaped from their horses and ran ahead to find protection behind a line of rocks. The intermittent, irregular firing of the Boers was punctuated by the regular, steady reports of British volleys.

Broadwood, equally confident that the whole force of the enemy was on his flank on the right bank of the Modder, marched heedlessly into the ambush which De Wet had laid for him in the Korn Spruit, on the direct line between two adjacent British posts, and which neither of them had discovered, although the usual patrols had been sent out.

Presently we approached a deep spruit, and having dismounted, we were cautiously leading our horses down the steep bank, when suddenly we found ourselves the centre of a perfect storm of bullets. We were completely taken by surprise, and almost before we realised what had happened, we found ourselves confronted by two rows of British soldiery, who shouted "Hands up," and fired simultaneously.

Four days after the flag-raising, the Boer force which had been sent forward to forbid the invasion of the English troops met them at Bronkhorst Spruit 246 men of the 94th regiment, in command of a colonel, the big drum beating, the band playing and the first battle was fought. It lasted ten minutes. Result: British loss, more than 150 officers and men, out of the 246. Surrender of the remnant.

All along the banks of the spruit, for a mile on either side of the ravine, and over on the hills where Peter De Wet and his burghers lay, men had been waiting patiently and expectantly for that signal gun of Christian De Wet.

The result was a scene of confusion. Towards us, over the brow of the hill, came the waggons pell-mell, with a few carts moving rapidly in front. When the first of these reached the spruit its occupants a man with a woman beside him became aware that something was wrong. I was standing at the top of the drift with Commandants Fourie and Nel.

It was not possible for him to think or be like pure white people, to do as they did. He was a child of the kopje, the spruit, and the dun veld, where men dwelt with weird beings which were not men presences that whispered, telling them of things to come, blowing the warnings of Destiny across the waste, over thousands and thousands of miles.

We next crossed the Rhenoster Spruit, and passed the then famous Rhenoster position, so formidable even to the unskilled eye, and where my military friends told me the Boers would have given much trouble, had it not been for the two outspread wings of the Commander-in-Chief's army.

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