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The commando, however, was handled with little judgment or energy, and was soon checked by the field guns which had been withdrawn from the detached hill near the Kissieberg ridge to cover the retreat of the infantry; and which at one time were firing trail to trail, some still engaging Olivier on Kissieberg while others were shelling Grobler.
The districts west and south-west of the capital were infested by energetic commandos which had thwarted all Baden-Powell's and Smith-Dorrien's efforts to suppress them, and Grobler was threatening Pretoria from the north.
I had again hurt my knee, and had to leave Ladysmith for Pretoria, from whence I went to Warmbad at Waterberg to stay for a few weeks with Mrs. Klein-Frikkie Grobler, who received me most kindly. My brother Frits got leave for the first time then, too, and Willem remained at Ladysmith.
Those of Erasmus and Grobler remained where they were for the time being, until the latter was discharged for some reason or other and replaced by Attorney Beyers. General Erasmus suffered rather worse, for he was deprived of his rank as a general and reduced to the level of a commandant on account of want of activity.
No one seems to have missed them at the time and they were made prisoners of war without an effort to extricate them. In less than two hours all the fighting except the little affair with Grobler was over. On neither side were the casualties of killed and wounded heavy. No British officer was killed and of the eight who were wounded four had been struck by shells not fired by the enemy.
Within the angle enclosed by these lines were commandos under Grobler of Vryheid, Emmett, and other leaders; but all of them wriggled out with insignificant losses. The line along the Swaziland border was rendered immobile by difficulties of supply, and the driving line was exhausted.
While Botha engaged the attention of Lord Roberts by energetic demonstrations on his right, Grobler and De la Rey were to make a sudden attack upon his centre and his left, each point being twelve or fifteen miles from the other.
Delarey, who had checked French at Diamond Hill, came out of the east to quicken the west; the baffled burghers of Snyman, released from the siege of Mafeking, were trickling vaguely into the district; a force under Grobler of Waterberg was reported north of Pretoria; an incursion was made across the Vaal from the Free State; and commandos appeared south of the Magaliesberg near Olifant's Nek and Commando Nek, thus threatening the movements of Baden-Powell, who was operating north of the range and who had occupied Commando Nek and the adjacent Zilikat's Nek on July 2, leaving only a small force at Rustenburg.
As early as May the Orange Free State President, who was looked upon by the simple and trustful British as the honest broker who was about to arrange a peace, was writing to Grobler, the Transvaal official, claiming his share of the twenty-five million cartridges which had then been imported. This was the man who was posing as mediator between the two parties a fortnight later at Bloemfontein.
On the same day another cavalry regiment was in trouble. Onderste Poort, a few miles north of Pretoria, was attacked by Grobler of Waterberg, and while reinforcements were on their way he drove back still nearer to the capital the force which was holding the outpost, and forced one troop to surrender. The situation was alarming.
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