Through Shot and Flame / The Adventures and Experiences of J. D. Kestell Chaplain to President Steyn and General Christian De Wet

by J. D. Kestell

Blockhouses were also erected in the northern and south-eastern portions of the Orange Free State. One line from Kroonstad to Lindley was finished towards the middle of December; another from Botha's Pass to Vrede and Frankfort at the end of the year; and a third from Harrismith to Bethlehem shut off, with the portion that had already been built from Fouriesburg to Bethlehem, the grain districts behind Nauwpoort, about the middle of January 1902. People had all kinds of ideas about these blockhouses. Some thought that they did not signify much, and might be compared to the flags which are sometimes planted in front of a flock of sheep. At first the sheep remain within the line, but soon they find that the flags form no insuperable barrier, and then they graze up to, and then to the other side of the flags. Others again could not conceal their fears. The English, they thought, were making the circle narrower, and we should eventually have to flee from place to place until we were overtaken and overwhelmed by superior forces. We soon found that there was truth in both views. The circle was drawn closer and closer. If the English columns were marching about, we had to keep our horses tied at nights to be ready every moment to retire to the right or to the left, so as not to be driven against the blockhouses, or we had to retreat before the enemy until near some line of blockhouses, and then suddenly face about and either pass between our pursuers or go round them. On the other hand, the danger of the blockhouses was not so great as had been feared. Burghers could always pass them on horseback, and sometimes they even did so with carts and herds of cattle.

1902.

The New Year had again come; and with the year new trouble and ever-increasing distress. It was not easy for us, in spite of all that had thus constantly gone against us, to remain hopeful. Now and then we read something in the newspapers, picked up on the spots where the English had encamped, that encouraged us somewhat. What we read of Anglophobia in Germany would cheer us up a little and revive the expectation in us that the war would soon be over. But when we would read in the same papers that the English Government was resolved to continue the war at all costs, and when we were constantly eye-witnesses of the uncivilised manner in which the troops carried on the war, then, as far at least as I was concerned, there appeared to be no prospect of a speedy termination—no sign in our clouded sky that the storm was breaking. "Watchman," so I seemed to cry, "what of the night? what of the night?" and it was as if I always received the answer: "The morning has come, and yet it is night."

What especially did not tend to encourage was the increasing violence with which the English continued their destructive work. This took place in the districts to the east of Lindley, chiefly in the month from 10th January to 10th February. Especially was this the case where the column of Colonel Rimington passed.

Colonel Rimington now passed through portions of the districts of Bethlehem and Harrismith, in the neighbourhood of Reitz. When he came to a farmhouse, the first questions of his officers and soldiers to the housewife were, "Where is your husband? Where is de Wet? Where is Steyn? Where are the Boers?" The woman could honestly reply that she did not know, whereupon they threatened to burn down her house, if she gave no information; and while the conversation was still going on she was summarily ordered to carry out her bedding; the soldiers would then with loaded guns and fixed bayonets storm into the house to seek for Boers, under the beds and in clothes presses. They then smashed the looking-glasses, so that the Boers should make no heliographs of them. Further, they took everything they wanted to: pillow-cases to serve as bags for fruit, etc., sheets, knives and forks, even when these had already been carried out along with the bedding. Pots and pans the housewife might in no case retain, even all the dishes and plates were smashed. Worse still, the woman was robbed of all her food; what the soldiers could not eat, such as flour, was thrown out upon the ground, and trodden under foot in the mud and dirt. Bread was never spared; out of the bin, from the table, or hot from the oven, it was taken, and not a crumb left behind. If there were any meat in pot and pan on the fire, then it was carried off, pot and pan and all. And thus the soldiers took the food out of the children's mouths. The mother remained behind with nothing. If she asked what she was to give her two, three, or six children to eat, the rough retort was, "Ask de Wet that?" "Never," said one woman to me, "was it so hard for me, as when my children cried to me for bread, and I had nothing to give them."

And then the soldiers would ride away to do the same at the next house. The woman left behind at the ruins of her house, took some of the zinc plates, laid them sloping against the wall of her destroyed house, and remained there until her husband came and brought her some food, and made a dwelling for her again, as well as he was able. Besides, all this I have heard from women that fearfully insulting language was used towards them by the rude soldiers. This certainly was not indulged in by all, for, as the woman readily admitted, there were some camps which passed through that were blameless. The armed Kaffirs revelled in being able to address the women familiarly with "thou" and "thee." "Where is your (jou) husband?—If he were here now I would shoot him dead." And they marched through the house as freely as the soldiers did.

It often happened that the soldiers broke into a house late at night, and forced their way even into the bedrooms, where the women lay in bed, under pretext of hunting for hidden Boers.

On the 10th of January the column of Colonel Rimington came to our hospital at Bezuidenhout's Drift. Notwithstanding that Dr. Poutsma had been allowed by Lord Kitchener to come and practise amongst us, and that the Red Cross flag was displayed that morning, as usual, over two of the buildings, and over the ambulance waggon, some soldiers stormed the hospital. This is what Dr. Poutsma, inter alia, says in an affidavit: "In and around the building shots were fired, and about fifteen yards from me, at the back door, a horseman dismounted, and kneeling down fired at me. 'Hands up!' he cried, and notwithstanding that I was, of course, unarmed, and moreover had put up my hands, he continued firing, whereupon I fled into the house. When I got to the kitchen some shots were sent after me, but wonderful to relate, without the intended result, as was the case also with six revolver shots which a captain fired partly at me, partly into the kitchen, and partly into the large sick ward. The captain in question, whose name is unknown to me, was so disappointed at all his shots having missed me, that he sprang towards me with the empty revolver, pushed it under my nose, and shouted, 'I'm damned sorry that I didn't shoot you.'

"Meanwhile the shooting inside the house continued at the three nursing-sisters, the Assistant A. van Toorenenbergen, and at me, and, most horrible of all, at the helpless wounded burghers who lay on their beds. I saw one of the soldiers outside kneeling down, and resting his gun on the window-sill he fired two shots at the wounded burgher Wessels, who, however was not hit, but was covered with dust from the wall beside him, where it was struck by the bullet."

The doctor now went to the veranda, and was there arrested by order of a major. But when the Assistant Mr. van Toorenenbergen shouted, "Doctor, Sister Rautenbach is wounded," he wrenched himself loose, and went into the large sick ward.