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The man who sold the stones gave the name of Josef Hoffman, and the merchant produced his card which bore the name of Jacob Meyer and Meyer, and an address in the De Jordaan, Amsterdam. He was described to me as a tall, powerful, fresh-coloured, fair-haired German, of pleasant manners and address.
One of the objective blockhouses was on the waggon path to the north of the village, and the other was 1,000 yards to the east of Potloodspruit. Field-Cornet Young, accompanied by Jordaan and Mellema, crept up to within 10 feet of one of these blockhouses, and brought me a report that the barbed wire network which surrounded it rendered an assault an impossible task in the darkness.
The office in the De Jordaan I found to be a room which had been taken for a week or two, and then vacated, by a person whom I easily identified as the fair-haired German. The draft had been exchanged for a draft on the banker's London agents by the same man. I came on to London immediately, but Hoffman, or whatever his name may be, was a week ahead of me.
My two professional scouts, Jordaan and Mellema, had also reconnoitred the village from another direction, and had brought back confirmatory information and the news that Lydenburg was occupied by about 2,000 British soldiers, consisting of the Manchester Regiment and the First Royal Irish, together with a corps of "hands-uppers" under the notorious Harber.
There on the ground lay the two lifeless forms of my brave and faithful adjutants, Jacobus Nel and L. Jordaan. As I bent over their prostrate bodies my eyes grew dim with the sad tears of my great bereavement. Major Orr stood uncovered by my side, touched by my deep emotion and paying homage to the brave dead. "These men were heroes," I said to him with broken voice.
Both belligerents in this district attempted to annoy each other as much as possible by blowing up each other's mills and storehouses. Two of the more adventurous spirits amongst my scouts, by name Jordaan and Mellema, succeeded in blowing up a mill in the Lydenburg district used by the British for grinding corn, and the enemy very soon retaliated by blowing up one of our mills at Pilgrim's Rest.
I had the following Commandants under me: Du Preez, of Hoopstad; Grobler, of Fauresmith; D. Lubbe, of Jacobsdal; Piet Fourie, of Bloemfontein; J. Kok and Jordaan, of Winburg; Ignatius Ferreira, of Ladybrand; Paul De Villiers, of Ficksburg; Du Plessis, and, subsequently, Commandant Diederiks, of Boshof. The English had entrenched themselves at the Modder River, we at Magersfontein.
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