Altogether I had well-nigh two thousand persons with me. Commandant Mentz was, like myself, enclosed in the "drive," but some distance away. General Wessels, Commandant Beukes, and some of the Bethlehem burghers were in the same predicament to the west of us. I did not know for certain where these officers were placed, and therefore I could not inform them of my plan to break through that night, for I had only come to this determination after the sun had set. But I felt sure that they would at all costs make their way through the cordon.[104]
Commandant Jan Meijer had met me at Brakfontein, but one party of his burghers was still six miles to the south. When I decided to break through, I sent him orders to follow me; and this he was quite capable of doing, as he was well acquainted with this part of the country. My orders were that the mounted men were to proceed in advance, taking with them my little waggon drawn by eight mules.
This waggon had accompanied me into Cape Colony, and since that time—for fourteen weary months—had never left me. I had even taken it with me when, a fortnight previously, I had broken through the blockhouse lines.
Behind the horsemen came the aged and the sick, who occupied the remaining vehicles, and lastly the cattle, divided into several herds.
In this order we rode on.
When we were approaching the spot at which I expected to find the enemy, I ordered Commandant Ross and one hundred men, with Hermanus Botha and Alberts, and portions of their commandos, to go on ahead of us.
After passing through Holspruit we inclined to the west, as the road to the east would, according to my scouts, have led us right into the English camp. But it was not with one camp only that we had to deal: the English were everywhere: a whole army lay before us—an army so immense that many Englishmen thought that it would be a task beyond the stupid and illiterate Boer to count it, much less to understand its significance. I will pander to the English conception of us and say, "We have seen them: they are a great big lot!"
We had hardly moved three hundred paces from where we had crossed Holspruit, when the English, lined up about three hundred yards in front of us, and opened fire. We saw that they did not intend our flight to be an easy one.
Before we had reached the "spruit,"[105] and while crossing it, the burghers had kept pushing ahead and crowds had even passed us, but the enemy's fire checked them and they wheeled round.
Only the men under Commandants Ross, Botha, and Alberts did not waver. These officers and their veldtcornets with less than one hundred men stormed the nearest position of the enemy, who were occupying a fort on the brow of a steep bank.