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Updated: September 18, 2025
The Boers have declared war on the English Government, and they have eaten up the rooibaatjes at Bronker's Spruit, near Middleburg. Joubert shot them all there the day before yesterday." "What!" shouted John, letting his pipe fall in his astonishment. "Stop, though, that must be a lie. You say near Middleburg, the day before yesterday: that would be December 20. When did you hear this?"
A staff-officer galloped up, "Walk, March," "Trot," rang out to the Battery, and we trotted ahead down the hill, plunged down a villainous spruit, and came up on to the level, under a pretty heavy fire from the kopje on our left. For my part, I was absorbed for these moments in a threatened mishap to my harness, and the dread of disgrace at such an epoch.
On and on they dashed, over rocks and chasms, until they were within a few hundred yards of a part of the British force. Slowly they crept up the sides of the spruit, cautiously peered out over the edge of the bank and then opened fire on the men at the cannon and the troops passing down the slope.
It was hoped now, after all these precautions, that the last had been seen of the gentleman with the tinted glasses, but on June 21st he was back in his old haunts once more. Honing Spruit Station, about midway between Kroonstad and Roodeval, was the scene of his new raid. On that date his men appeared suddenly as a train waited in the station, and ripped up the rails on either side of it.
A column under Dartnell at Bethlehem, which had recently been reinforced from Rundle's command by a strong detachment under Barrington Campbell, was on the point of returning to Harrismith, when it was informed that De Wet's re-united commandos were lying in wait at a spruit about twenty miles out on the road to Harrismith.
There Veld-Kornet Klaassen ordered his men to off-saddle and give the horses a rest. Meanwhile the camp was burnt, flames arose in all directions, and thousands of cartridges exploded. After we had watered our horses in a neighbouring spruit we lay down to rest.
By about six we could see the Boers creeping forward over Bell Spruit and making their way up the dongas and ridges in our front. At about eight there was a pause, and it seemed as if the attack was abandoned, but it began again at nine with greater violence. The shell fire was terrific.
On his journey he was met by a number of burghers at Bronkhorst Spruit, the scene of the battle in the War of Independence, about twenty miles from Pretoria. One of the burghers, an old Boer named Hans Botha, who was the opponent of Mr.
I had seen the evacuation of Spion Kop during the night, and I did not doubt that it would be followed by the abandonment of all efforts to turn the Boer left from the passages of the Tugela at and near Trichardt's Drift. Nor were these forebodings wrong. Before the sun was fairly risen orders arrived, 'All baggage to move east of Venter's Spruit immediately.
But when I looked at the peaceful plain and reflected on the storm and tumult presently to burst upon it, I could not help being glad that no gentle eye would view that bloody panorama. Vide map, opposite p. 366, which will be found to illustrate the subsequent letters. Venter's Spruit: January 22, 1900.
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