GENERAL "FIGHTING BILL" MULLER
And his assistant commandants and veldtcornets near Lydenburg, just before the general surrender.
The English would enter all the good farm houses, tear up the floors, and dig, dig, dig in search of money and jewelry that might be buried under the floor. Having satisfied themselves, they would then burn and destroy everything. At the end of this month there was not a farm house standing on the high veldt.
We had the great pleasure of seeing about 600 cavalry charge a farm house. We had never before seen such a daring, reckless charge, and there was not a man among that 600 that did not eminently win the V.C. We had read of the charge of the 600 at Balaclava, and in imagination had often tried to draw the picture so glowingly painted by one of England's poet laureates; but this would sink into insignificance and pass into oblivion if only the charge of the 600 on the farm house filled with women and children could have been witnessed and depicted by some such realistic and blood-curdling poet as Alfred Austin or Rudyard Kipling. The one would never again have to describe in patriotic rhyme Jameson's raid, nor would the other have to live in "Barroom" ballads, for so delightfully red would the words that each could have drawn from his imagination have been, that they could have painted in thrilling phrases a picture so bloody and hair raising as to immortalize them. I cannot describe this charge. It was too much for me, but we seemed to hear the command, "Charge!" and on they came, every horse with distended nostrils and wild, glaring eyes doing his best, not one man dropping from the pace, not one faltering, all surely determined to do or die. And in another moment the farm house is taken together with its occupants, women and children, who filled the doors and windows. In another minute all were driven from the house, the floors torn up, search for money and jewelry made, then the oil spread and the house consumed in flames.
But, you ask me where the blood is to come from? I will tell you. Those brave men set to work and killed over one hundred chickens, ducks and geese, several pigs, some calves and 2,000 sheep which they drove into the sheep kraal and killed with the bayonet. They were two and three deep, and that great mass of butchered sheep were rising and falling in different parts for many days, for many were still alive buried under others and slowly dying.
I had seen much of the bloody work of the Apache Indians far away in Arizona, but I had never seen anything that could possibly compare in down right cruelty to this piece of savagery on the part of the English soldiers. The prisoners of war in the way of women and children were now marched off and driven to the murderous concentration camps, and a stirring report of the daring charge made to London, the bloody end being omitted. This famous column now joined with the fourteen others and all began to chase the several Boer commandos who were scattered about the veldt. Remember that the high veldt is a high plateau without rocks or mountains, and it is practically impossible for any command to conceal itself from the English. General Louis Botha and the Government were many times surrounded and cornered, but at picking up time, they were not present.
The various columns continued to follow them from place to place during the month, but no fighting men were lost. Quite a number of women and children were captured and sent to the concentration camps and invariably reported as so many burghers.
I now leave the English and Boers moving to and fro in all directions till the end of the month, and when all the high veldt is reported as swept clean of Boer commandos. Just before the end of the month General Ben Viljoen with Commandant Mears attacked General Plumer near Bethel and were prevented from taking in his column by the captured women and children being so placed that the Boers could not fire without killing some of them. This was a most cowardly piece of business, but it enabled General Plumer to rescue his men, with the exception of some thirty who were taken prisoners. These could not succeed in getting themselves behind the women and children without taking serious risk of being shot. General Plumer was satisfied to leave also a few horses and several thousand sheep which he had hoped to take with him to Standerton. No doubt some of those brave and chivalrous men who fought behind those Boer women and children were recommended for the V.C. and received it, such is the inclination of the British officer to report imaginary daring deeds in all engagements in which he may participate.