With Roberts to Pretoria: A Tale of The South African War

by G. A. Henty

Three days later Yorke and Hans started with the colonel up the line. He had two young Engineer officers with him. The colonel's two horses and Yorke's were taken in a truck under the charge of Hans and the colonel's soldier servant. Trains of provisions and stores for Kimberley and Mafeking were being sent up rapidly, and depots formed at several points along the line. It had not been deemed prudent to send them very far until the plans of the Boers were apparent. The horse-box and the carriage in which the officers travelled were detached from the train at points that were considered important. Here they remained for a few hours, and were then attached to another train. While the colonel and his assistants examined the culverts and bridges, and made notes of their relative importance, Yorke made enquiries from British farmers as to the disposition of the Dutch population, and Hans resumed the clothes in which he had left the farm, and, under pretext of looking for a situation, entered into conversation with men of his own class.

The reports naturally varied a good deal. The opinion of the English colonists was that although the Dutch sympathies might be strongly with the Transvaal Boers, few of them were likely to take any active steps to join them, unless they invaded the Colony in great force. Many of the young men, however, were missing, and it was generally believed that they had started to join their kinsmen in the Transvaal. Many of the better class of farmers who had been often at Cape Town, where not a few of them had received their education, were much better acquainted with the military power of Great Britain than were the mass of the Dutch population; and these, whatever their sympathies might be, were of opinion that in the long run her strength must over-power that of the Boers, and that an enormous amount of suffering and damage would result. They admitted that they themselves had nothing whatever to grumble at under the British flag, and acknowledged that the government of the Transvaal treated the Uitlander population there in a very different manner, and that had that government been ready to grant the same treatment to them as the Dutch of Cape Colony enjoyed, there would never have been any trouble.

"I think it all means," the colonel said one day when they were discussing the reports brought in, "that if we thrash the Boers the Colony will remain quiet; if they gain any big success, the greater portion of the Dutch here will join them. But no doubt there will be trouble in getting the trains through; it is impossible to guard such an enormous length of line. The utmost that can be done will be to have detachments posted at all the bridges whose destruction would cause serious delay. We can hardly doubt that rails will be pulled up and culverts destroyed, for this can be done by two or three men working at night. But of course each train going up will carry a few rails and a couple of balks of timber, tools, and three or four railway men, and the repairs can be executed with only a very short delay."

Four days after starting the party arrived at De Aar, which had been selected as the most favourable position as a base. At this place a line of railway from Port Elizabeth joined that from Cape Town. Seventy or eighty miles down the Port Elizabeth line were junctions at Naauwpoort and Middelburg Road, the former with the main line running up through the Orange Free State to Pretoria and Pietersburg, the latter joining the line from East London at Stormberg, north of which was a branch to Aliwal North, and another crossing the Orange River at Bethulie, and joining the main Orange Free State line at Springfontein. Whatever might be the intention of the Dutch later on, so far there had been no attempts whatever to meddle with the railway. The waggon trains loaded with stores went up in rapid succession, and on their way met almost as many crowded with refugees from the Transvaal, the Free State, and Kimberley.

Miners and store-keepers, millionaires and mechanics, were closely packed, with little distinction of rank, and Yorke and his fellow-officers frequently expressed their disgust that so many able-bodied men should be flying, when on crossing the frontier they might well have gone to Kimberley, Colesberg, and other places to take part in the defence of the towns. The first blow had been struck. An armour-plated train going up to Mafeking had on the 12th been fired at with guns and derailed. Lieutenant Nesbit and the soldiers with him had defended themselves gallantly, but had at last been obliged to surrender. From Natal the telegrams were of a still more exciting nature. The invasion of that colony began a few hours before the ultimatum expired, and it was expected that the force under General Penn Symons would be attacked in the course of a day or two.

The Loyal North Lancashires had passed them the day after they started. Four companies had gone on to Kimberley, the rest had encamped at Orange River station.

Many mules and trek oxen had been sent up, and large numbers of Kaffirs, and the station at De Aar presented a busy scene. Wooden sheds had already been erected by the Engineers, and these were being filled with the more perishable articles, such as sugar and tea; stacks of bags of flour and mealies, and of cases of tinned meat, were rising in the open, while everywhere were piles of stores of all kinds lying just where they had been thrown from the trucks on the sidings. An hour after Yorke's arrival the colonel was occupied in fixing on a site for a battery. This was selected on the top of a rising mound near the station, and from this the guns, when placed in position, would sweep the surrounding country. Tents were pitched for the party, and in these they speedily settled down.

"Now, Mr. Harberton," the colonel said that evening, "it does not seem to me that at present I have any occasion for your services here. We shall trace the lines of the fort to-morrow morning; a train with four hundred Kaffirs will arrive this evening, and we shall get to work by breakfast time. Then one officer and a couple of the sappers will be sufficient to look after them, while we shall attend to getting things in readiness for the arrival of more troops. So far the railway between this and Kimberley is still open, but it is certain that it will not be so for long. I think you can be most usefully employed in riding through Philipstown and Petrusville, and scouting between Zoutpans Drift and thence to Hondeblafs River and Colesberg Bridge.

"Between these places there is, so far as I know, no ford, and we may assume that if the Free State men cross in any strength it will be at one or other of these points; but small parties may possibly swim the river and attempt to cut the line north. At any rate, it is well that we should learn what is going on, and get early information of the movements of any of the enemy's parties. I am in hopes that no combined advance on their part will take place till we have got our guns mounted, for at present we are certainly not in a position to offer any serious resistance to an attacking force. Fortunately the Free State men are not as well prepared for a contest as the Transvaalers, and we know by the fugitives who have come down that very many of them are altogether opposed to Steyn's policy. Moreover, it is probable that they will direct their first effort against Kimberley; but it is as well to be forewarned.

"You can, of course, if you think proper, cross the Orange River in your Dutch disguise and gather news there. We can get very little reliable information from the fugitives, they seem to have swallowed every wild report in circulation; and if we were to credit their accounts we should believe that at least a hundred thousand Free Staters—that is to say, pretty nearly every adult male—were already under arms and on the march for the frontier. I have no faith whatever in such reports. I believe it far more likely that, as fast as they can be organized, a portion will march on Kimberley, but that their main force will go down through the passes in the Drakenberg to join the Transvaal force in Natal. That, I think, is the point upon which they are concentrating their attention at present, and they intend to sweep us out of that colony before they undertake any serious operations on this side. I think you may as well start in the morning."