WATERVAL PRISON, NEAR PRETORIA
Of the uneventful dulness of their life in the prisoners’ camp, where few visitors ever came, and none whose presence could be considered very cheerful, we may judge by the fact that hardly anything has been written about it. The poor fellows who had neither money nor friends to procure it for them must have fared ill indeed on nothing but Government rations issued according to the following scale, which cannot be impugned, seeing that the Editor found it written in choicest official Dutch among other documents at Pretoria bearing the seal of the Z.A.R. On this scale the officers were to receive 1 lb. of meat and an undefined ration of meal, rice, or peas, per head per day, with a weekly allowance of groceries amounting to 2 oz. of coffee, 2 oz. of tea, and one candle per head. In practice the meat ration dwindled down at times to as little as 1½ lb. a week for each officer, and the meal, rice, or peas being à discrétion, not of the consumer but of the burgher in charge, were occasionally off the bill of fare altogether. The rank-and-file were each to receive 7 lb. of flour, 3 lb. of meal, 3 lb. of rice, 3 lb. of dried French beans, 21 oz. of sugar, 2 oz. of salt, 3½ oz. of raw coffee beans, and 2 lbs. of meat per week, and had to see that they got it, as the Boers, being rather short of luxuries themselves, claimed the right to make reductions frequently on the plea that there had been an excessive issue for some previous day. Actually at one time the prisoners at Nooitgedacht, to whom the same scale applied, did not receive more than an average of 3 lb. of flour and ½ lb. of meat per head per week, and the beans, which formed their only vegetable diet, were useless. The captives among whom a few of Lumsden’s Horse found their lot cast at Waterval were not so badly off as that, but still there was so much monotony, both in food and in the featureless routine of daily life, that they must have been very glad to hear the booming of British guns outside Pretoria and to know that the hour of their deliverance from bondage was at hand. A few days after the entry of our troops into the capital, Colonel Lumsden had the gratification of writing:
Lieutenant Crane’s many friends in India will be pleased to hear that he is once more with us and in command of his section, looking stout and well, none the worse for his wound or his enforced stay in Pretoria.
Sergeant Fraser, Corporal Angus McGillivray, Privates R.N. Macdonald, Peterson and Leslie Williams are also back with us, all looking fit and strong.
Lance-Corporal Firth is at present employed in the Financial Adviser’s office in Pretoria, and has made himself so useful that I cannot persuade General Maxwell, the Military Governor, to dispense with his services.
CHAPTER XI
TOWARDS PRETORIA—LUMSDEN’S HORSE SCOUTING AHEAD
OF THE ARMY FROM BLOEMFONTEIN TO THE VAAL RIVER
Lord Roberts was so well satisfied with the results achieved by General Ian Hamilton’s division and the other columns operating south of Thaba ’Nchu on May 1 that he regarded all the strategical points in that direction as being securely held, and was therefore no longer anxious for the safety of the railway, on which future supplies for his army might be dependent after the exhaustion of those already collected at Bloemfontein. In these circumstances he determined on an immediate advance the day after Hamilton had cut the Boer chain in two at Houtnek. He accordingly sent General Pole-Carew’s division from Bloemfontein to Karree Siding, where their arrival was hailed by Lumsden’s Horse as significant of great things to follow, seeing that General Tucker’s brigade had been pushed forward to occupy the ground over which Mounted Infantry corps fought two days earlier. General Hutton’s brigade of mounted troops was ten miles west of the railway at Brakpan by Doorn Spruit, and General Ian Hamilton’s division had advanced from Houtnek to Isabellafontein, out-flanking the Brandfort range of kopjes. Thus, on the morning of May 3 De la Rey found his position seriously menaced, and after-events proved that he had no intention of making a stand there longer than was necessary for a rearguard action, by which he might delay the British advance and give his own main body time to withdraw all heavy artillery and stores. Threatened on the left by Ian Hamilton, and finding his right flank in danger of being turned by Hutton’s Mounted Infantry, De la Rey retired, and our troops entered Brandfort that afternoon. The Boers, however, had fallen back to a second position, being neither disorganised nor beaten, but only disinclined for close fighting, and until dusk they continued to show such a firm front that the mounted troops could do little against them. Colonel Lumsden sums up the situation briefly by the following entry in his official diary:
On the morning of the 3rd we left Spytfontein at daybreak with Colonel Henry’s brigade, and joined General Maxwell’s brigade (14th) at the foot of Gun Kopje, the place where Major Showers was killed. The Mounted Infantry, covering a front of some three miles, swept the country towards Brandfort, Infantry and guns following. A little desultory fighting occurred, driving in the enemy’s advance parties on to their first position, which we found at about 11 A.M. The guns and Infantry then came up and cleared the position in about an hour. During the action we were exposed to a good deal of shell fire, which fortunately did no harm, owing to the ground being soft and the shells burying themselves before bursting, if they burst at all.
At 12 the advance was made on their second and main position, about two miles off, and lying some five miles north-east of Brandfort. The enemy offered little resistance, confining themselves chiefly to long-range artillery fire. When the position was practically taken the Mounted Infantry were sent away to the right flank to make a wide turning movement with a view to cutting off the retreat of ‘Long Tom,’ who, however, catching them on a wide open plain, forced them to dismount for the attack. The dismounted men advanced some two miles in his direction, but dusk setting in it became evident that it was impossible to reach that position with daylight, and we were ordered to rejoin our horses and return to camp. This we reached about 8 P.M., having been in the saddle fifteen hours and covered quite forty miles. There had been no time during the day to feed the horses, which consequently felt the work very much. Our casualties were nil; but ten horses died from exhaustion.