How he and his fellow-prisoners fared after they had fallen into the power of their enemies is a story told with graphic picturesqueness in the following letters from Sergeant Fraser, who was surrounded by Boers when he lay bruised by a heavy fall in company with Trooper Saunders, who had gallantly risked his own life in an attempt to bring Fraser out from under fire:
Photo: Johnston and Hoffmann.
SERGEANT DAVID S. FRASER
We had imagined that our destination was comparatively close, but we covered mile after mile without any more satisfaction from our guards than that it was over the next kopje. The column wound in and out among many hills ere a halt was called. Though we had started about 11 in the morning, it was not until 4 o’clock in the afternoon that our escort stopped at an ambulance tent, which was in charge of a hospitable Swiss doctor. We had had nothing to eat all day. In the hurry of getting ready so early in the morning neither of us had time to think of food, and our day’s rations were in our saddles, now in the hands of the Boers. So the good Swiss fed us plentifully with soup, meat, and coffee. He examined me and found only bruises. Saunders’s arm was much swollen, and the surgeon could not ascertain what the damage was. It afterwards turned out that the muscles were lacerated and one of the bones in the forearm cracked.
In the doctor’s tent was a wounded officer, Lieutenant and Adjutant Lilley, of the Victorian Mounted Rifles. He, poor chap, had been shot through the head during the same engagement, and had been brought in a waggon from the field. He recognised us in so far as to repeat the name of our regiment, but seemed woefully wounded and repeatedly broke out in delirium. The doctor who had been so kind to us seemed assiduous in his attentions, and I am sure everything possible was done for the poor Australian. We heard afterwards that he had been left in hospital at Brandfort by the Boers, and found by our troops a few days afterwards, when they took possession of that place. He subsequently died from the wound, which was caused by a bullet passing through his brain. Marching for another mile we came to the Boer laager at dusk. Those in camp met us kindly, more particularly as the news given by our guards was that their own commando had apparently scored a victory. They gave us coffee at once, and a place to lie down and rest. And thus began our captivity.
While Saunders and myself were recovering from our exertions, discussing the events of the day, and generally commiserating each other upon our misfortunes, we were much cheered to perceive the approach of two men attired in khaki and helmets. These proved to be Sergeant-Major Healy, of the Victorian Rifles, and Private Simmons, of the Duke of Cornwall’s Regiment’s Mounted Infantry. Both had fearful things to relate of the morning’s action. They had been through all the heavy fighting preceding the occupation of Bloemfontein, and agreed that never had they experienced such hot fire as on this particular morning. About 8 o’clock our guards supplied us with bread and coffee, and pieces of biltong, stuck on a wire, that had been thrust into a fire. They then accommodated us with a tent, a blanket apiece, and an empty sack or two—for we had no coats, and the cold was intense. In such comfort as we could make for ourselves with these limited resources we lay down, and soon slept the sleep of the weary. It seemed but a few minutes since we had turned in when we were awakened with rough kindliness, and turned out of our tent. The bulk of the commando had returned to camp after a successful but wearisome day, and the owners of the tent wanted their own. So out we got into the bitter cold. They placed us between two tents, and we arranged ourselves a second time as best we could. Despite the lack of warmth and comfort, we slept heavily, and the sun was high in the heavens next morning ere we awoke.
Bread and coffee formed our breakfast, and this meagre meal was welcome enough. Our guards themselves had no more, so we could not complain. As the morning wore on, the sun became rather trying, and once again we were accommodated with a tent, wherein we discussed at length the events of yesterday. As this conversation turned inevitably to our own capture, needless to say we gradually began to despond. But we were shortly to have our hearts lightened by the discovery of fellow sufferers—how company in trouble eases one! In marched Firth, McGillivray, Macdonald, Petersen, and Williams, of our own corps, followed by Coghlan, of Sergeant-Major Healy’s regiment. Coghlan had a broken leg, done up in plaster of Paris, and lay on an ambulance pallet. Needless to say, we had much to tell each other, and Saunders and myself then heard how Franks, Case, Daubney, and H.C. Lumsden had been killed, and Lieutenant Crane wounded and a prisoner. It was not until afterwards we heard that Major Showers had been killed and several others wounded on the same day.
The frugal fare of the morning was repeated in the afternoon, except in the case of the bread. Of it the Boers had none, but they furnished us with a plentiful supply of a kind of rusk. This appeared to be simply broken bread dried in an oven. It made a very good meal, but tried those of us whose teeth had been somewhat worn down by eating moorghis[[9]] in India.
To march forth in the morning with a gun in your hand to fight your country’s battles; to endanger your life that you may return to your female relatives, decorated and a hero; to hear the vicious ping of bullets, the shrieking of shells, and know yourself alarmed but undismayed, are fine things. But to sit at night in the enemy’s laager with wings clipped, no gun, and a sinking stomach is so untoward a thing that a man who suffers it may well question the reason of his birth and entertain hopes that the world is about to end.
Six of us sat in the dusky light of a tent in a Boer laager near Brandfort, and our own mothers could not have comforted us. It wasn’t as if we had had a bellyful of fighting, like others who had begun the campaign in Cape Colony, or as if after a tremendous struggle we had been overpowered. Without practically a chance to retaliate, we had been deluged with bullets that went by in such numbers you could hear them rattle against each other in their flight. Then instead of the bullets came the Boers, and we were prisoners—hands up, pockets empty, hopes vanished!—this in our first fight!