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We then entered the Moot district, dreaded for its terrible horse-sickness, and in the beginning of March we arrived at Tafelkop, to the north-east of Lichtenburg, near Mabaalstad. Once, as I lay resting against my saddle, I heard an old Boer telling of the courage and hopefulness among the burghers from whom he came. They talked of nothing but peace.
The disappointment was not great enough to make us lay down our arms, but we knew it would be many a long day before peace was in the land. How long should we still be chased from place to place? When would there be rest for our exhausted bodies? And how we longed for our dear ones, if only we should find them alive! We stayed fully three weeks at Tafelkop.
The operation may be likened to the sweep of two brooms, one acting with a semicircular and the other with a forward movement. It was begun by Elliott, who started on February 13, and after an abortive attempt to snap up De Wet reached Wilge River on February 22 and awaited the arrival of the other columns; his left being near Tafelkop. Rawlinson and Byng meanwhile were advancing.
The negotiation of February 7, between Kitchener and Louis Botha, was read out to us at Tafelkop. The burghers were unanimous in condemnation of Kitchener's conditions, and were fully satisfied with Botha's short, vigorous answer. Had we indeed fought so long and so fiercely only to become an English colony, and not to be allowed to carry arms unless we had a license?
Six of the 'hands-uppers' told me that the whole month we were camped at Tafelkop they had hidden from us in their bedrooms so as not to be obliged to break their oath of neutrality. I came across an old acquaintance of mine in the lager Phister, who had served under Commandant Boshoff. I knew that he had been wounded in the leg at the Battle of Stompies and taken by our men to Rietpan.
Our lager was moved from Tafelkop to Rietpan, from whence a few hundred of our horsemen started with some guns and a few trolleys for Groot Kafferkraal, in Hartbeestfontein district. General De la Rey had come over to organize the expedition in person, and accompanied General Kemp. I went with a man called Jooste to the neighbourhood of Lichtenberg and Klein Kafferkraal to commandeer cattle.
General Botha, who had with him Jan and Arnoldus Du Plessis as guides, went from Boesmansbank to a tafelkop, to the south-east of the town. On this mountain the English had thrown up splendid schanzes, and had also built gun forts there, which would have been very advantageous to us, if we had only had more ammunition.
There was a long lull after the unsuccessful attack upon Kekewich's camp at Moedwill, but close observers of the war distrusted this ominous calm and expected a storm to follow. The new year found the British connecting Ventersdorp with Tafelkop by a blockhouse line. The latter place had been a centre of Boer activity. Colonel Hickie's column covered this operation.
On our arrival at a certain farm to the south of Senekal we discovered that General Knox was once more at our heels. We had several small engagements with him, in one of which a son of Commandant Truter, of Harrismith, was killed. On the afternoon of Christmas Day, 1900, we left the farm, and rode on to the Tafelkop, nine miles to the west of Senekal.
After the British occupation of Bloemfontein there was a small skirmish about eight miles north of that city at a place called Tafelkop which sent the Free Staters running in all directions. The veld seemed to be filled with deserters, and at every farmhouse there were from two to six able-bodied men who had retreated when they believed themselves to be in grave danger.
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