“The camp was placed on the southern slope of a gentle rise, which is encircled on the west by a spruit running generally north-west, and joining the main river about two miles distant. About three hundred yards from the spruit the ground on which the camp stood rises into a rocky kopje about a hundred yards long at the crest. This was defended with great determination, and most of the casualties occurred here.
“The Boers, too, suffered very severely in the attack on this position, and it was not until the enemy attacked the hill from the rear that any impression seemed to have been made on the defenders. A perfect hail of bullets appears then to have been poured in from the rear, which killed or wounded all of its defenders. Finally Captain Sandeman tried to reach the kraals in the vicinity of the camp, but most of the men with him were shot down, and he himself was wounded.
“The Boers then rushed the camp, but not a single man surrendered, the enemy levelling their rifles and firing on any man they saw.
“On Major Nickalls’s squadron coming up the enemy retired quickly in the direction in which they had come.
“The Boers, on entering the camp, went straight for the supplies, but were able to take away only a few biscuits and hardly any ammunition, the Lancers having emptied their bandoliers, as the hundreds of empty cartridges found on the kopje eloquently testified.
“The enemy’s casualties were extremely heavy. The dead and wounded were carried off by the commando when it retired.”
From Bank View to Mount Prospect, then across the Mancazana, along the Fish River and over the Port Elizabeth line near Sheldon Station the raiders went, followed with unrelaxing energy by Colonels Gorringe, Doran, and Scobell. Colonel Gorringe succeeded in catching them in the Zuurberg Mountains and caused them to split their force in two, one half fleeing south, the other west. Early in October they reunited south of Darlington and were again attacked and trounced by the indefatigable Colonel, who drove them north with the loss of three of their number killed and five wounded.
Meanwhile Myburg and Fouché had been flitting around the northern borders, while Colonels Monro, Pilcher, Western, General Hart, with Colonel Murray’s troops and the Connaught Rangers, guarded the river line from Bethulie to Herschel. The residency at this place was attacked on the 4th, but Major Hook and the local police sent the foe to the right-about with considerable celerity and the loss to them of twenty-nine horses and three men. Everywhere small gangs of Boers made themselves obstreperous, and some made an attempt on Ladygrey, which was promptly repulsed. On the 20th of September, however, Kruitzinger, north of Herschel, endeavoured to force a passage over the Orange, and came into collision with some eighty of Lovat’s Scouts under Lieutenant-Colonel Hon. A. D. Murray. The gallant Scotsmen, small in number but large in courage, held on grimly to their post, and the attempt to cross was fiercely resisted, but unhappily with the loss of the brilliant commander, who had led them throughout the campaign with gallantry and distinction. He fell shot through the heart while shouting, “Fix bayonets!”[7] His adjutant, Captain Murray, also fell, and sixteen of his brave men, while one officer and thirty-five men were wounded. A gun was carried off under cover of darkness, but it was promptly followed up and recovered in a smart engagement in which the Boers lost two killed and twenty prisoners. The end of the month, the enemy having withdrawn into the Transkei, was spent by Colonels Monro and Pilcher in watching the passes of the Drakensberg; but later they, with Colonel Western—leaving Colonel Monro and local troops in charge of the area—were recalled to the south-east of the Orange Colony. Commandant Scheepers at this time was making himself obnoxious in the region of the line near Matjesfontein, and to circumvent him General Beatson despatched Colonel Crabbe’s column from Waggon Drift on a night march, which helped materially to break down Scheepers strength. The force completely surprised the enemy under Van der Merwe (in a place where they had outspanned some twelve miles east of Laingsburg), killed the commandant—a sporting youth of eighteen, who was considered by his friends as a De Wet in embryo—and one of his followers, wounded many of the burghers, and took thirty-seven prisoners, including Field-Cornet Du Plessis. This was on the 10th. From that time to the 20th Scheepers was kept on the move, and finally after much veering and dodging reached Klip Drift on the 20th. He continued to evade the pursuing columns of Colonels Crabbe, Atherton, and Major Kavanagh till the 5th of October, when this last officer almost captured him. He was attacked at Adams Kraal, twenty miles south-south-west of Ladysmith, and only succeeded in saving himself “by the skin of his teeth.”
Commandant Theron, hoping to join Scheepers, was fleeing before Colonel Capper in the Ceres district. This officer was assisted by Colonels Alexander and Wyndham, who, when they had driven the enemy well away to the north-west, continued in the chase after Scheepers.
Colonel Sprot and Major Lund were persistently engaged in tussles with Lategan’s gang, which had reappeared south of the Orange, and in a brilliant encounter on the 23rd of September Major Lund succeeded in securing an influential rebel, Louw by name, together with seven of his followers. Colonel Hunter-Weston, in a smart engagement with Lategan, secured Coetzer and other rebels and drove the rest northwards.