Adventures in Swaziland: The Story of a South African Boer

by Owen Rowe O'Neil

We smashed all the windows, and the officers and orderlies came tumbling out in great haste. The sentries did not fire on us, but there was a general rush in our direction which resulted in our capture. When we were brought before General Carew, he asked what we thought we were doing. None of us could talk English and the questioning was done through an interpreter. I informed him that we were loyal Boers and had declared war on the English.

General Carew looked at me very severely and asked me if I was ready to be shot for a treacherous attack after the town had surrendered. This was a new thought for me, but I stood to my guns and defied him. However, I did not like the idea of being buried in the local cemetery where we boys had seen so many British and Boer soldiers already put away.

After a few more questions, all of them with the most serious face and a gravity that could mean nothing but evil for us, the general delivered sentence. It was that we were to be taken to the improvised mess-room and fed all the jam, biscuits, tea, and sugar we could eat! I remember that I was very proud to be given a tin of jam for myself alone. My sister, Ellen, had been one of our attacking party and she shared equally in the spoils of our captivity.

But this treatment did not pacify us. Next night we made another attack, and this time we were really punished. We were captured and tied to the veranda posts of some houses nearby. Now this would not have been bad, if we had not been superstitious.

During the days following the victorious entry of General Carew into Belfast, we boys had been intensely interested in a number of wagons loaded with the bodies of British soldiers. These wagons were driven down the main street and the bodies buried in huge graves, oftentimes eight and twelve to a grave, in the local cemetery. The tale was soon started that the ghosts of these soldiers walked about the main street at night.

After we had been tied to the veranda posts it suddenly occurred to me that we would most likely see these ghosts, and I mentioned this pleasant thought to my fellow-prisoners. Immediately there arose a wailing and weeping; our brave little army cried to be allowed to turn tail and depart to its beds.

Of course the British did not know what was the matter. Ellen, instead of being tied up like the rest of us, had been taken into the mess-room and given more crackers and jam. She came out in a hurry to see what was the matter with us. I told her between gasps of horror, and she ran in to the mess and through the interpreter told the colonel. She said later that he regarded it as a huge joke for a little while, but then, when she became anxious for us, gave orders that we were to be freed. We scurried home with all speed as soon as the hated "Tommies" turned us loose. This was the end of our little war against the British. We might fight them, but when it came to ghosts we lost our nerve.

In spite of stories that have been spread about the Boer War, there was always a fine sporting spirit between our people and the British. A good example of this was what happened to one of my older brothers. Jafta, the Mapor king, was concerned in this.

My father had prospered greatly in the Valley of Reeds, and when the war broke out owned immense herds of cattle, sheep, and horses. Soon after Belfast was taken he decided that it would be a good thing to move his stock into the northern and more remote parts of the Transvaal. One of my older brothers, two uncles, and a neighbor undertook the trek with the stock.

Such a trek is slow and tedious work, and shortly after they started out a galloping outpost of about thirty Britishers came upon them. The Boers fled. Their horses were tired and trail-weary and they had to leave the stock without a chance to obtain a remount from the horses they were driving. They broke for the mountains, and zigzagged about until they came to the kraal of Jafta, the Mapor king.