EVENTS IN CAPE COLONY
The early part of September was spent in chasing Commandant Smuts, who had burst from the Orange Colony into the Jamestown-Dordrecht district. Here he was tackled on the 12th by Colonel Monro, but succeeded in evading our columns. The raiders then rushed in the night across the line towards Tarkastad. To the south in all haste followed Colonels Gorringe and Doran and the 17th Lancers, while the west was guarded (at Cradock) by Colonel Scobell. Smuts, when some eighteen miles north-west of Tarkastad, in desperation decided to attack a squadron of the 17th Lancers under Major Sandeman. These seeing a force dressed in kharki approaching, accepted them as comrades till too late. The enemy was almost upon them before they discovered their mistake. But the “Death or Glory Boys,” even in these circumstances, fought valiantly, and though three officers and twenty men fell, and Major Sandeman and thirty men of the squadron were wounded, all brilliantly maintained the traditions of their regiment. The approach of Major Nickalls and another squadron of the Lancers forced the Boers to cease fighting and continue their bolt to the south.
An interesting report of the smart engagement was published by the Midland News. The correspondent wrote:—
“Smuts’ commando rushed a squadron of the 17th Lancers, under Captain Sandeman, on Tuesday morning, the 17th inst. The squadron was posted at Modderfontein, guarding the southern exit from Elands River Poort, and another pass towards the north-east, known as Evans Hoek, to prevent the Boers from coming south-west into the Cradock district. The surprise was due chiefly to the Boers being dressed in kharki, and being thus mistaken for Colonel Gorringe’s men, who were expected to arrive from Soude Nek in the course of the day. A mist which hung over the low ground till late that morning also favoured the approach of the enemy, as in the case of Colonel Scobell’s capture of Lotter’s commando.
“On receipt of a report that a small picket in advance of the camp had been rushed, a troop quickly mounted and rode towards the poort. The officer in command saw some kharki-clad men about two miles from camp, and thinking they were some of Colonel Gorringe’s column, rode forward to meet them. When about two hundred yards distant, seeing them levelling their rifles, he shouted out, ‘Don’t fire! we are the 17th Lancers.’ The only answer was rapid rifle fire, which emptied several saddles.
“During this time another body of the enemy had worked up the donga running past the camp, and approached it from the rear. These men were dressed in kharki, and were taken for friends. Major Nickalls was encamped at Hoogstude, about three miles distant, and, having been informed of the attack on Captain Sandeman’s camp, he was coming up to its support. Consequently the order was given not to fire on this party.
“The camp was placed on the southern slope of a gentle rise, which is encircled on the west by a spruit running generally north-west, and joining the main river about two miles distant. About three hundred yards from the spruit the ground on which the camp stood rises into a rocky kopje about a hundred yards long at the crest. This was defended with great determination, and most of the casualties occurred here.
“The Boers, too, suffered very severely in the attack on this position, and it was not until the enemy attacked the hill from the rear that any impression seemed to have been made on the defenders. A perfect hail of bullets appears then to have been poured in from the rear, which killed or wounded all of its defenders. Finally Captain Sandeman tried to reach the kraals in the vicinity of the camp, but most of the men with him were shot down, and he himself was wounded.
“The Boers then rushed the camp, but not a single man surrendered, the enemy levelling their rifles and firing on any man they saw.
“On Major Nickalls’s squadron coming up the enemy retired quickly in the direction in which they had come.
“The Boers, on entering the camp, went straight for the supplies, but were able to take away only a few biscuits and hardly any ammunition, the Lancers having emptied their bandoliers, as the hundreds of empty cartridges found on the kopje eloquently testified.
“The enemy’s casualties were extremely heavy. The dead and wounded were carried off by the commando when it retired.”
From Bank View to Mount Prospect, then across the Mancazana, along the Fish River and over the Port Elizabeth line near Sheldon Station the raiders went, followed with unrelaxing energy by Colonels Gorringe, Doran, and Scobell. Colonel Gorringe succeeded in catching them in the Zuurberg Mountains and caused them to split their force in two, one half fleeing south, the other west. Early in October they reunited south of Darlington and were again attacked and trounced by the indefatigable Colonel, who drove them north with the loss of three of their number killed and five wounded.
Meanwhile Myburg and Fouché had been flitting around the northern borders, while Colonels Monro, Pilcher, Western, General Hart, with Colonel Murray’s troops and the Connaught Rangers, guarded the river line from Bethulie to Herschel. The residency at this place was attacked on the 4th, but Major Hook and the local police sent the foe to the right-about with considerable celerity and the loss to them of twenty-nine horses and three men. Everywhere small gangs of Boers made themselves obstreperous, and some made an attempt on Ladygrey, which was promptly repulsed. On the 20th of September, however, Kruitzinger, north of Herschel, endeavoured to force a passage over the Orange, and came into collision with some eighty of Lovat’s Scouts under Lieutenant-Colonel Hon. A. D. Murray. The gallant Scotsmen, small in number but large in courage, held on grimly to their post, and the attempt to cross was fiercely resisted, but unhappily with the loss of the brilliant commander, who had led them throughout the campaign with gallantry and distinction. He fell shot through the heart while shouting, “Fix bayonets!”[7] His adjutant, Captain Murray, also fell, and sixteen of his brave men, while one officer and thirty-five men were wounded. A gun was carried off under cover of darkness, but it was promptly followed up and recovered in a smart engagement in which the Boers lost two killed and twenty prisoners. The end of the month, the enemy having withdrawn into the Transkei, was spent by Colonels Monro and Pilcher in watching the passes of the Drakensberg; but later they, with Colonel Western—leaving Colonel Monro and local troops in charge of the area—were recalled to the south-east of the Orange Colony. Commandant Scheepers at this time was making himself obnoxious in the region of the line near Matjesfontein, and to circumvent him General Beatson despatched Colonel Crabbe’s column from Waggon Drift on a night march, which helped materially to break down Scheepers strength. The force completely surprised the enemy under Van der Merwe (in a place where they had outspanned some twelve miles east of Laingsburg), killed the commandant—a sporting youth of eighteen, who was considered by his friends as a De Wet in embryo—and one of his followers, wounded many of the burghers, and took thirty-seven prisoners, including Field-Cornet Du Plessis. This was on the 10th. From that time to the 20th Scheepers was kept on the move, and finally after much veering and dodging reached Klip Drift on the 20th. He continued to evade the pursuing columns of Colonels Crabbe, Atherton, and Major Kavanagh till the 5th of October, when this last officer almost captured him. He was attacked at Adams Kraal, twenty miles south-south-west of Ladysmith, and only succeeded in saving himself “by the skin of his teeth.”
Commandant Theron, hoping to join Scheepers, was fleeing before Colonel Capper in the Ceres district. This officer was assisted by Colonels Alexander and Wyndham, who, when they had driven the enemy well away to the north-west, continued in the chase after Scheepers.
Colonel Sprot and Major Lund were persistently engaged in tussles with Lategan’s gang, which had reappeared south of the Orange, and in a brilliant encounter on the 23rd of September Major Lund succeeded in securing an influential rebel, Louw by name, together with seven of his followers. Colonel Hunter-Weston, in a smart engagement with Lategan, secured Coetzer and other rebels and drove the rest northwards.
Sad was the fate of a gallant fellow, Lieutenant M. Gurdon Rebow, who, with nine men of the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, while searching a farm, was attacked by the enemy at Cyferkuil, near Riet Siding, on the 17th. Some thirty or forty Dutchmen burst suddenly upon the small party, whose gallant stand against this overwhelming majority was one of the most striking episodes of desperate valour on record. A summons to surrender was refused, and it was not till Gurdon Rebow himself had been shot down and one of his men had been killed and two dangerously wounded that the remaining few Grenadiers, after a fight of three hours, were captured. The sergeant of the patrol lost his life in a gallant effort to swim the Carolus River in search of help.
As a proof of the herculean labours of the columns during this month, in spite of the prevalence of rinderpest among the cattle and the consequent reduction in the efficiency of the ox transport, the sum total of achievement may be quoted: 170 Boers killed, 114 wounded and prisoners, 1385 unwounded prisoners, 393 surrendered burghers, 11,000 horses (practically useless), 41,500 cattle, 798 rifles, 119,000 rounds small arm ammunition, and 770 waggons.
At Pretoria the month closed with the execution of Broeksma, formerly the Public Prosecutor of the Transvaal, whose trial, begun on the 12th of September, lasted three days. He was charged on the four counts of breaking the oath of neutrality, treachery, high treason, and inciting to break the oath of neutrality, and the evidence showed that the police found in his house treasonable pamphlets and documents, including copies of letters addressed to Mr. Steyn, Mr. Reitz, “Dr. Williamson,” and Mr. Kruger. Other letters were produced in court which purported to have come from Dr. Krause. On the concluding day of the trial the Crown Prosecutor stated that “Dr. Williamson” was in reality Dr. Leyds. Sundry other burghers and Netherlanders were tried for treachery and on other charges, while some were found guilty of high treason and murder and sentenced to death. This sentence in most cases was commuted to penal servitude for life, or reduced to terms of imprisonment.