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I shall now describe how we went to work in the matter of capturing trains. That this is not so easy a task as appears to be supposed I shall endeavour to show. Perhaps the best way to exemplify our method of procedure would be to describe a particular instance which occurred in March, 1901, between Belfast and Wonderfontein on the Delagoa Bay Railway.
A glance at the map would show, however, that it was a very large field for seven guns, and that it would need all their alertness to prevent the driven game from breaking back. The whole movement resembled a huge drag net, of which Wonderfontein and Greylingstad formed the ends, exactly one hundred miles apart. On January 27th the net began to be drawn.
The attack was to be made in the following way: The Commandant-General and General C. Botha along with F. Smuts, would attack on the southern side of the garrisons, in the following places: Pan Station, Wonderfontein Station, Belfast Camp and Station, Dalmanutha and Machadodorp, while I was to attack these places from the north.
I arranged my plans as follows: Commandant Trichardt, with two field-cornets posses of Middelburgers and one of Germiston burghers, were to attack Pan and Wonderfontein; the State Artillery would go for the coal mine; the Lydenburgers look after Dalmanutha and Machadodorp; while General Muller with the Johannesburgers and Boksburgers would devote their attention to Monument Hill.
In intense darkness we were firing at each other from time to time, so that it was not advisable to continue our operations under the circumstances, and at daybreak I told all my commandos to desist. The attacks on Wonderfontein, Pan Station, Dalmanutha, and Machadodorp had failed.
Of the Boer attacks upon British posts to which allusion has been made, that upon Belfast, in the early morning of January 7th, appears to have been very gallantly and even desperately pushed. On the same date a number of smaller attacks, which may have been meant simply as diversions, were made upon Wonderfontein, Nooitgedacht, Wildfontein, Pan, Dalmanutha, and Machadodorp.
The holes may surprise our posterity, by the way, as a display of the splendid architectural abilities of their ancestors. Let us pass on to the 21st of August, 1900. Buller's army had by this time effected a junction with that of Lord Roberts' between Wonderfontein and Komati River.
A few weeks after we had captured the train carrying the European mails we made another attempt at train wrecking, this time at Wonderfontein Station. All, too, went well on this occasion until we charged, and the British opened fire upon us with cannon.
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