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Updated: May 24, 2025
The play was 'Our Boys, and between the acts my next neighbour gave me, without any sign of emotion, a hideous account of the scene at Tweefontein after De Wet had rushed the British camp on the Christmas morning of 1901 the militiamen slaughtered while drunk, and the Kaffir drivers tied to the blazing waggons.
The South African Light Horse, the New Zealanders, and the Queensland Bushmen all rode in upon them. A fifteen-pounder, the one taken at Tweefontein, and two pom-poms were captured, with thirty prisoners and a considerable quantity of stores.
Scarcely fifty miles away at Tweefontein, De Wet's midnight charge had left behind it sixty men sleeping their last grim sleep in defiance of the peace ordained for the Christmas dawn. And, midway between the camp of the living and the line of the dead, there lay the little town of Bethlehem.
"I now come to the second charge the charge of the shooting of the boy John Thomas at Tweefontein. Now, sir, here again the boy was clearly a spy. He carried two passes similar to those carried by the boys mentioned in the first charge. He was unarmed. He was not in uniform. He was there to spy the movements of the Boers.
Lord Methuen had not long to wait for occupation. As soon as he arrived at Boshof he posted his pickets on every possible point of vantage, and patrolled the neighbourhood of Boshof over a wide circumference; and he was rewarded. The little engagement at Tweefontein was, we all hoped, an auspicious beginning for Lord Methuen's advance.
The Harrismith section had been pushed as far as Tweefontein, which is nine miles west of Elands River Bridge, and here a small force was stationed to cover the workers. This column consisted of four squadrons of the 4th Imperial Yeomanry, one gun of the 79th battery, and one pom-pom, the whole under the temporary command of Major Williams of the South Staffords, Colonel Firmin being absent.
This rough encounter of Tafelkop was followed only four days later by a very much more serious one at Tweefontein, which proved that even after two years of experience we had not yet sufficiently understood the courage and the cunning of our antagonist. The blockhouse line was being gradually extended from Harrismith to Bethlehem, so as to hold down this turbulent portion of the country.
We heard afterwards that they had suffered much more severely than we had done. A Success at Tweefontein The column had marched to Harrismith. It was time that I accomplished something further, and I determined that the next blow I struck should be a heavy one.
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