A woman's wanderings and trials during the Anglo-Boer War

by Jacoba Elizabeth De la Rey

I was now so far from the Boer laager that I began to fear that if the English drove them away I should certainly fall into the hands of the enemy. We waited in great anxiety to hear what would be the result of the battle. The country was very bare and exposed just there, and as the troops had many guns with them it was dreadful to think of the fighting. Yet on the evening of the 1st of March there came a report that the laager was taken and that Lord Methuen had been wounded. I could not believe that Lord Methuen was really wounded. The following morning I felt a great wish to pay a visit to the laager. I had my horses harnessed and started. I had to drive a good way—it seemed to me for nearly four hours—and although I had wanted to go back the same day to my waggons, I found it would be too late to do so. I arrived at the laager in the afternoon, and there I found an enormous crowd of men and animals. I asked my husband if really Lord Methuen were here. “Yes,” he answered, “it is the man who sent you out of Lichtenburg.” “Then I shall go and see him,” I said. I went with my daughter, and we found him, quartered with a few tents and waggons, a little distance from the laager. When I got there, one of our people, a man called Tom, said that he did not want to see any visitors. Yes, that I could well understand, that it was not pleasant for him to see the Boers. All the same, when he heard that I was there, he said that I might come in—that he would like to see me. I went into his tent; there lay the great, strong man wounded above the knee, right through the bone. When I had come in he begged me to forgive him for all the annoyance he had caused me, and he asked if I had suffered much discomfort from all that running away. “No,” I said, “it all went much better than I had expected. I did not even have to do my best to escape from falling into your hands.”

“Oh,” said he, “I have done my best to catch you.” And so we “chaffed” each other. As it was a difficult position for both of us, I asked him if his leg were hurting him very much. He said, “No, not very much.”

“Then it won’t be a good thing for us,” I said, “if your leg gets cured so quickly, then you will come and shoot at us again.”

He laughed and said, “No, I am going away, and I will not shoot at you any more.”

Then he told me all about Lichtenburg, and how things were going there, and he said that my houses were still unharmed.

I said, “But my dwelling-house has been destroyed.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, “that had to be broken down. General De la Rey might have been coming to it some fine morning and firing at me out of it. That was why it had to be broken down.”

Then he told me how glad he was to be able to go back to Klerksdorp, and he asked me to let the telegram to his wife be sent off as quickly as possible.

Then, as I also wanted to send a telegram to my children in Pretoria, I told him that he must take good care of it and forward it, so that they too should be sure to get it. Yes, he said, he would not fail to do so. And he was true to his word; for when I met my children later they said they had received it.

Then it grew late and it was time to return. I wished him a speedy recovery. When I came to the laager they gave me one of the waggons which they had taken from the enemy to sleep in. It was late and I had to see to our dinner. But everything seemed in such a muddle among all these menfolk; I did not know where to lay my hand upon what I wanted.