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The ox is killed and cut into biltong, and the meal baked into stormjagers, a kind of dumpling fried in dripping. Now Scheepers' little corps, which consisted of half a dozen men, was probably not very well off itself in the matter of provisions in any case, they offered me none. The commissariat consisted of nothing but oxen and meal, cold comfort for me.
If so you will know what my feelings were after the first hour. And now just imagine that the waltz lasted for four hours, and you will have some idea of my sufferings, for that is the length of time I was compelled to spend on the back of my new acquisition. Scheepers had sent a couple of men on ahead a few days before in order to see if the coast was clear.
At last some of Captain Scheepers' men appeared he was scouting in front, and Captain Danie Theron in the rear and reported that the railway line was clear, with the exception that at Honingspruit there were half a dozen tents, and four in the Kaallaagte to the north of Serfontein, and a few small outposts.
On June 13th the youthful and dashing Scheepers, who commanded his own little force at an age when he would have been a junior lieutenant of the British army, raided Murraysburg and captured a patrol.
The execution of Lotter and his lieutenants was a sign that the patience of a long-suffering Empire had at last reached an end. The young Boer leader, Scheepers, had long been a thorn in the side of the British. He had infested the southern districts for some months, and he had distinguished himself both by the activity of his movements and by the ruthless vigour of some of his actions.
He did not, however, wholly abandon the scheme of a Cape Colony raid, for he detached Kritzinger and Scheepers with instructions to hover and watch their opportunity of breaking into it. The opportune falling of the Caledon opened to him a postern towards the north, and on December 7 he crossed the river and made for Helvetia, where again he was entangled.
When I arrived at General Botha's camp, which was situated six miles to the east of Lindley, I found that General Knox had already taken Kroonstad. After this we allowed ourselves a rest. On the 8th of January I received reports from Commandant Kritzinger and Captain Scheepers dealing with the state of affairs in Cape Colony.
Murder of two unarmed natives. Report of Colonel Hickman, Ladismith, October 1, 1901. Shooting of two natives by Scheepers. Date uncertain. A native in Petrusburg Gaol was shot in his cell by two Boers on the approach of the British troops. So much for the Kaffir murders.
We returned to the column, which was marching wonderfully slowly, and informed Scheepers, who was pleased to find his men so punctual. As we rode along he asked me a few particulars about the vibrator, wire tapping, and so on. I told him how at Spion Kop the wire failed at the very moment it was needed most. "Yes," he remarked thoughtfully, "trifles often make all the difference.
Of course, the execution of Scheepers is also justified by the author. I object to such things appearing in a book, because they must tend to sow anew the seeds of dissension, hate and bitterness, and these have been planted sufficiently deep without being nurtured by Dr. Conan Doyle.
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