The remaining three companies of the infantry were quartered on the three sides of the town to act as a reserve, and also as a second line of defence, should the Boers penetrate the picket line and rush into the town. The pickets were relieved every ten days or so, and their positions changed, as the sentry work at some was harder than at others. The men were allowed into the town to go to the Canteen or the Soldiers' Club during the afternoon; it was quite 40 minutes' walk to some of the pickets, so that most of the men usually remained at home.
The two guns of the battery were quartered on the outskirts of the town, but the five inch gun was kept in its gun pit on No. 2 picket to the south, where it dominated a very large tract of country. On one occasion it was taken at night to the opposite picket, about 4 miles away, whence it very much astonished some Boers who were wandering about in front at a distance of no less than 6 miles.
The Yeomanry and a few men of Brabant's Scouts were utilised to furnish a picket by day on the top of Tafelburg, a high square-crowned kopje, about 3 miles to the north-west, from which an extensive view could be obtained; and a couple of mounted men were kept by day at some of the pickets, in case of necessity, to carry messages or go after suspicious passers-by. All the pickets were in signalling communication with each other and with headquarters in the town; sometimes helio messages were received from Bethlehem, about 35 miles to the south-east, whose garrison was apparently similarly situated to ourselves; and occasionally, at long intervals, a runner arrived from Kroonstad with microscopic messages—usually containing news, unimportant to us at all events, such as the state of the Czar's health, but very little information as to how things were going on with regard to our move to India, about which we were most concerned.
Occasionally a few of the mounted men would go out at night, and surround a farm or two in hopes of catching a few Boers who might be indulging in the unwonted luxury of a night's rest in a bed; but only once did they meet with any success, and then they caught a solitary Boer who gave us a deal of trouble to look after. Lieut. Harden and Lieut. Montgomerie had the honour of catching this sportsman, who seemed to have been a fighting Boer from the yarns he told with regard to the fights in which he had taken part; but most of his stories had to be taken cum grano salis.
On the 3rd of December, however, the Boers treated us to an alarm about half-past nine at night: they crawled up a donga which ended in a short outcrop of rocks within four hundred yards of one of the detached posts then occupied by B company. The rocks afforded splendid natural cover in capital positions for firing from, and the Boers, about a dozen of them, opened a smart fire at the eight men occupying the small defensive work, who, nothing loath, replied with vigour, blazing away at the flashes of the enemy's rifles. One Boer must have been hit, as some blood was found on the grass the next day. The enemy fired about 500 rounds, judging from the cartridge cases lying in little heaps behind the rocks, and our men got rid of about the same number. One or two of the Boers had the impertinence (it was nothing less!) to try and stalk the picket by dodging up towards them from post to post of a line of fencing which ran in their direction; but, coming to a gap where one or two posts were missing, their hearts failed them, and they went no further. None of our men were hit, but the stone loopholes and the parapet of the post were splashed with bullet marks in five or six places.
Firing commenced also against Captain Aldridge's picket, about a mile further off, where bullets came plunging through the tents, to the astonishment of the men there. These, however, quickly dropped into their places in the various sangars, and replied briskly to the enemy's fire, which, as could be seen by the flashes, was coming from a ridge over 2,000 yards away. After half-an-hour or so the firing dropped on both sides.
The remainder of us had, of course, turned out at once and got into our various positions. About half-past ten, everything being quiet, we turned into bed again. In a few minutes there was a furious clatter of about a dozen shots fired rapidly from the north-east, and later, two more outbursts of firing from the north; and as none of our pickets on that side had fired, we concluded the Boers were ending the evening's amusement by firing at each other, an original idea, and one that we hoped they would regularly carry out—if possible, without causing us to turn out also in the dark. We never heard the cause of this firing, and the only possible solution was that two parties of Boers must have met in the dark. There was, however, a very good reason for the sudden firing on the pickets to the east and north-east, as we found in the morning, when Swannepool, a loyal farmer living to the north-west of the town and some miles away, arrived in a furious passion, swearing vengeance against all and every Boer; and, when he had cooled down somewhat, announced that some Boers had held him up in the night, and had driven off all his stock, his cows, his bullocks and horses, and had taken away his Cape cart. Hinc illae lachrymae, he said, and we sympathised with him.
The few men of B company on the detached post were in a nasty corner for some time, and fully deserved the complimentary remarks which the Colonel made the next day, and which were published in battalion orders. They were as follows:—
Extract from Battalion Orders, 6th of December, 1900—
"The Commanding Officer wishes to express to Lance-Sergeant Ockelford and the eight men who defended the outpost of No. 1 picket, South, on the night of the 3rd of December, his approbation of their soldierly conduct in defending a small breastwork against a superior force of the enemy.