From Winburg I paid a visit to Vice-Commandant-in-Chief J. Hattingh, of the Kroonstad commando, and then went to President Steyn. My joy in finding that the President was safe, was only equalled by my grief at the loss of such old friends as General Cronje, Member of the Executive Council; General J.B. Wessels; T. Brain, Secretary to the Government; Commandant Davel; Rocco De Villiers, Secretary to the Executive Council; Gordon Fraser, Private Secretary to the President; MacHardy, Assistant Secretary; Pieter Steyn, brother of the President and Veldtcornet of the staff; and my other friends in the bodyguard. It was sad to think that such men were prisoners, and were lost to us so long as the war continued. We had become rather accustomed to such experiences, but what made this so hard to bear was that treachery had a hand in it—when the English took the Government and President Steyn's bodyguard prisoners, they had had a Free State burgher as their guide.
The vacant posts in the Government had now to be filled up, and the President appointed the following persons:—In the place of A.P. Cronje, General C.H. Olivier, as Member of the Executive Council; and in place of Mr. T. Brain, Mr. W.C.J. Brebner, as Government Secretary. Mr. Johannes Theron he appointed Secretary to the Executive Council, instead of Mr. Rocco De Villiers; and Mr. B.J. Du Plessis Private Secretary to himself in place of Mr. Gordon Fraser.
The President also decided to have, in future, only thirty burghers as his bodyguard, and appointed Captain Niekerk as their Commandant.
CHAPTER XXX
The Last Proclamation
I now impressed upon my officers as forcibly as I could the importance of intercepting the communications of the enemy by blowing up their trains. A mechanical device had been thought of, by which this could be done. The barrel and lock of a gun, in connexion with a dynamite cartridge, were placed under a sleeper, so that when a passing engine pressed the rail on to this machine, it exploded, and the train was blown up. It was terrible to take human lives in such a manner; still, however fearful, it was not contrary to the rules of civilized warfare, and we were entirely within our rights in obstructing the enemy's lines of communication in this manner.
Owing to this, the English were obliged to place many more thousands of soldiers along the railway line, in order to keep the track clear. Even then, the trains, for a considerable time, could not run by night. The English soon discovered how we arranged these explosions, and the guards carefully inspected the lines each day to find out if one of these machines had been placed beneath the rails. We knew that one had been found and removed, whenever we saw a train pass over the spot without being blown up. This, however, only made us more careful. We went to the spot which we had fixed upon for the explosion, hollowed out the gravel, placed the machine under the sleeper, and covered it up again, throwing the gravel that was left to a good distance from the line. After this, the guards could not discover where the machine was placed. They trebled the troops on the line in consequence.
The month of July had passed, and we wondered what August held in store for us. The customary fights of the different commandos still went on; here five, here ten, here thirty of the English were killed, wounded or made prisoners. If these numbers had been put down they would have mounted up to a considerable total; but the war was not of such a nature that an office could be opened to record them. Reports of battles were sent to me, and after I had allowed them to accumulate for three or four weeks, they were sent to the different Vice-Commandants-in-Chief for their general information, and then torn up.