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Updated: June 15, 2025
On our left we had Commandant Kemp with the Krugersdorpers; on the right Field-Cornet Koen Brits. The British tried alternately to get through between one of my neighbours and myself, but we succeeded, notwithstanding their fierce onslaught, in turning them back each time. All we could do, however, was to hold our own till dark.
"Brits' violets" the Tommies call them, as they seek a site to windward to pitch their tents. For weeks after the Brigade passed through M'Kalamo the air was full of stench, and the bush at night alive with lions coming for the feast.
On his left was Brigadier-General Myburgh. Nearer the railway was Brigadier-General Manie Botha. Next came the Commander-in-Chief with Headquarters Staff and Bodyguard; and, further, General Lukin. For the time being Brigadier-General Brits, on the extreme left, had disappeared. The Germans had a hobby of blowing up bridges.
More trouble was brewing at Brits, close to Pretoria. We trekked straightway to Zoutpan's Drift, the commandos again pursuing a body of rebels who, cutting through the railway line, had caused damage at De Wilts or Greyling's Post, twenty miles or so outside the Union capital.
Yon was a fine battle at the drift when I was sitting up to my neck in the Orange praying that Brits' lads would take my head for a stone. Peter was as thorough a mountebank, when he got started, as Blenkiron himself. All the way back to Lisbon he yarned about Maritz and his adventures in German South West till I half believed they were true.
The war with Japan was now officially over but mopping-up would still take some time and troopships of pink Brits were constantly passing; we used to cheer them up by yelling, "Get yer knees brown, Pinky." or, "Yer going the wrong way."
On one occasion I had to accept the hospitality at a farmhouse of one named Brits, nicknamed "vuil" or dirty Brits. This was an old blind widower; his household was composed, besides himself, of an old brother, also a widower, and the family of a son-in-law. After the evening meal the service was led by the blind man, the daughter reading some chapters in the Bible indicated by him.
Our Government received about this time a communication from General Brits, that the members of the Orange Free State Government had reached Blankop, north of Standerton, and would await us at Waterval. We hurried thither, and reached it in the evening of the 20th of June, 1901. Here we found President Steyn and Generals De Wet, De la Rey, and Hertzog, with an escort of 150 men.
This was specially remarked by us on our long trek down the Pangani, and thus we were warned of the fever that lurked in the bright green lush meadows beside the water, and the "fly" that soon overtook our transport mules and cattle and the horses of General Brits' 2nd Mounted Brigade.
Many of the old stagers among us were fried to a deep brown and could easily pass for natives and some used to swim out to the troopships and emulating the natives dive for pennies thrown by the unsuspecting pink Brits.
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