That evening we arrived at a spot about ten or twelve miles to the north-west of Strijdenburg. Here I left Commandant Hasebroek behind with three hundred men, till the following morning, with orders to watch the enemy and hold them back if necessary. This would give my burghers who were on foot, or whose horses were exhausted, a chance of getting away.
I might here explain to the uninitiated our methods of checking the advance of the enemy.
The burghers who had the best horses would remain behind any rise or kopje they could find in the neighbourhood. When the enemy approached and saw ahead of them two or three hundred burghers they would halt and bring their guns (which were usually placed in the middle of the column) to the front. When they had got the guns in position, they would bombard the ridge behind which the burghers were stationed. But as our men had no wish to remain under fire, they would then quietly withdraw out of sight. But the English would continue bombarding the hill, and would send flanking parties to the right and left. Sometimes it would take the English several hours before they could make sure that there were no Boers behind the rise.
It was tactics such as the above that gave my burghers who were handicapped by the condition of their horses, time to retreat.
It sometimes happened, in these rearguard actions, when the position was favourable, that the enemy were led into an ambush, and then they were either captured or sent racing back under our fire to bring up their guns and main force. Had we not acted in some such way as this, all my men would have been taken prisoner in this and in many other marches.
The large forces which the English on all occasions concentrated round me deprived me of any chance of fighting a great battle; and I could only act in the way I did.
If the reader is eager to know how it was that I kept out of the enemy's hands until the end of the war, I can only answer, although I may not be understood, that I ascribed it to nothing else than this:—It was not God's will that I should fall into their hands.
Let those who rejoice at my miraculous escapes give all the praise to God.