It was now ten o'clock.
A few English scouts appeared on the scene, and four of my men attacked them. One of the enemy was shot, and the rest taken prisoners. And still I did not hear anything from General Froneman.
At last I came to the conclusion that he must have misunderstood my instructions. If that were the case, I must do the best I could myself. Accordingly I opened fire on the English with my Krupp.
Still no news of General Froneman!
Then I ordered my burghers to advance. Our first movement was over the nearest rise to the north-west; we halted for a moment, and then made a dash for Leeuwspruit Bridge—but we found nothing there.
Late in the evening I met General Froneman, and heard from him the narrative which I have given above.
The following day I sent well on to twelve hundred prisoners of war—including Kaffirs—to the President's camp, which lay east of Heilbron. We then advanced to a point on the Rhenoster River, near Slootkraal, remaining in concealment there until the night of the 16th of June. The following morning we occupied some ridges at Elandslaagte, on the look-out for a large English force which was marching from Vredefortweg to Heilbron.
My intention was to give them battle at Elandslaagte, and to hold on to our positions there as long as possible; and then, if we could not beat them off, to retire. If only the burghers had carried out my orders strictly, we should certainly have inflicted heavy losses on the English, even if we had not won a complete victory.
The English had not sent out their scouts sufficiently far in advance, and came riding on, suspecting nothing. We occupied positions on the right and left of the road along which they were advancing, and my orders were that the burghers should let the troops get right between our ridges, which were about three hundred paces from each other, and then fire on them from both sides at once.
Instead of doing this, however, the burghers began to fire when the English were five hundred paces from them—before, that is to say, they had got anywhere near the door of the trap which I had set for them.