He told me he had come to see my young cousin, Johannes, who had been wounded on Spion Kop the day before. We walked over to the hospital. The wounded lad, a frail boy of fifteen, looked terribly exhausted lying there on the floor, his left arm completely shattered.
"We were two together," he said, "myself and another boy. We crept closer and closer to one of the small sangars, firing into it as we crept, until there was only one Englishman left alive in it. He called out 'Water!' and I ran to give him my flask. When I got close to him he pointed his gun at me and fired. I sprang aside, and the bullet ploughed up my arm. My chum then shot him dead. Our doctor was too busy with the English officers to attend to me, so I fear I shall lose my arm."
Poor child! his fear was only too well founded. His arm was amputated, after which he went to his uncle's farm to recuperate. When the British arrived there he would not surrender, but took his gun and went on commando. Three days later he was brought in, shot through the lungs. That is the last I have been able to hear of him.
A few days after the battle of Spion Kop we moved forward and opened another office on our right wing. The British soon after retired from the vicinity, and this wing was withdrawn. The office remained, however, being utilised by scouts and patrols for the transmission of urgent reports.
One day Oberst von Braun called, accompanied by two Boers. I asked him what had become of his lieutenant.
"Ah, poor von B——!" he said. "The fighting on Spion Kop was almost over, and he had just risen and walked forward a few steps, when a chance bullet crashed into his forehead, and he fell a corpse."
This was the same lieutenant who had caused a great sensation in Germany a few years before by killing an unarmed civilian in a moment of provocation. It may seem a just retribution that he should have met with such a tragic fate, but those who knew him in Natal felt nothing but regret for his loss. Oberst von Braun was taken prisoner a few days after, and the British reported that his mind was unhinged. This did not appear improbable to us, for we knew how much he had been affected by the loss of his companion.
I stayed here for three weeks, without much occupation except wasting ammunition on turtle doves and hoping that the next patrol would not be a British instead of a Boer one.
The deserted houses in the neighbourhood had all been visited in turn by both British and Boer patrols, and between the two enormous damage had been wrought. It must be pointed out, however, that the mischief done by our men was in no way authorised—was, in fact, against express orders, whereas the British now burn our houses to the joyful fiddling of the London Times, and with a righteous unction eminently national.
A small but remarkably severe engagement took place about this time, in which a portion of Viljoen's men suffered heavily.