Many other small fights took place, and the Boer commandants were generally successful in taking a few prisoners and wagons.
DESTRUCTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN—THE ONLY WAY TO END THE WAR—SCOTS GREYS ROUTED—ENGLISH TROOPS AND ARMED KAFFIRS FIGHT SIDE BY SIDE—GEN. DE WET COMPLETELY CORNERED.
The year 1901 came to an end and the Boers were still in excellent spirits, and good fighting trim. Our little command was twenty-five miles from Pretoria, and in addition to our dinner of mealie pap and fresh meat, we received through our famous spy, Captain Naude, our weekly mail from Pretoria. Letters informed us that Lord Kitchener wanted reinforcements to bring the war to a speedy end, and that the application of martial law in Cape Colony was making trouble among the British subjects. With all this the burghers were highly pleased, but the further news, that their women and children were daily dying by the hundreds in the prison camps, cast a gloom over all, and they spent most of the afternoon and evening in prayer.
Lord Roberts, Lord Kitchener, Joe Chamberlain and Milner, all fully realized that the only way to bring the war to a speedy end was to destroy the Boer women and children as quickly as possible. They all worked to the same diabolical end, and within eighteen months their death lists contained the names of 22,000 defenceless Boer women and children.
The new year begins well, for the burghers are determined to fight. They did not generally know, however, that their women and children were being murdered by wholesale, otherwise I am sure they would have stopped the war at once. The English columns made a desperate effort on the high veldt during January, and it was fighting here and there and everywhere every day. There was no rest for any one, and I think that General Botha was cornered every day, but he was never found in the corner. I was with Commandant Joacham Prinsloo and 120 men early in this month of January, and we camped by the Klip-Kopjes about six miles from Bronkhorst Spruit, a station on the Delagoa railway line. It was very warm and we were trying to shelter ourselves from the sun by hanging blankets on our rifles, when suddenly, about ten a.m., the English began to fire on us from some Kaffir kraals about 800 yards distant. Our horses were out grazing, but within five minutes all had caught their horses, saddled them, and were striking for the English. The English scouts left the kraals when they saw the Boers coming in a gallop. On reaching the kraals and kopjes near by, we discovered about 700 advancing. They tried at first to surround us, but grew frightened, because they saw the Boers were too determined, and all began to retreat. The Boers charged and the English fled with the Boers hot after them. This regiment of 700 men was the Scots Greys, and all were panic stricken. They were scattered in every direction, and making for the forts on the railway line. Before they found safety, however, the Boers had killed seven, wounded eighteen, captured twenty-three men and nearly sixty horses, bridles and saddles. The enemy really put up no fight at all, and when asked the reason, they said, "Our time is up in March, and we are not going to fight any more, for we are tired of it, and the English always manage to keep out of the fight."
I merely mention this to show the feelings of some of the so-called Scotch regiments at this stage of the war.
In the Free State they were constantly cornering General De Wet, and, although he was many times cornered, yet he was never captured. In Cape Colony the Boer commandants kept all the districts in great turmoil, and General French and his big army seemed helpless to do anything. Besides, the blockhouses were giving the English trouble too, for Commandant Alex Boshof was slipping up nightly and blowing them up with dynamite. This perfect little dare devil, with his equal, Captain John Shea, blew up fifty or sixty of them, and so terrorized the Tommies that they would not take chances in them at night. Now, the commandos could cross the lines easily, for the Tommies would lie in trenches and not shoot if the Boers let them alone.
In the Western Transvaal, some of General de la Rey's commandos were sent after cattle to the Mafeking border. They were successful and returned with some 20,000 head. Little else was done in this part of the world. In the North, General Beyers attacked Pietersburg and after a very hot fight, released 160 Boers whom the English had in a camp near the town. Fortunately, he was able to take them out all mounted and well armed.