In the simple phrases of another trooper who relates with more fulness the circumstances in which Trooper A.K. Meares met his death there are some pathetic touches:
We had several severe engagements, in one of which I am sorry to say young Meares was shot dead while his company (B) were retiring from a very large force of Boers with a few guns. It was altogether a sad affair, as his brother Willie was riding next him. Being in extended order, however, they were fifty yards or so apart, and Willie knew nothing about his brother being hit till he got into camp and found who was missing. It was then some men said they had seen him fall off his nag, but could tell no more. Willie went with a party next morning and found his brother dead. The bullet-wound was right over his heart. He was buried there. What makes it all the more pathetic is that young Meares was the only man hit that day, no one else getting a scratch.
Though the Boers made a brave show up to the last, disputing every position a hold of which gave them any advantage, the resistance offered by them to Lumsden’s Horse was only an expiring effort. Their right flank had by that time been turned by other corps of Mounted Infantry, among whom the Colonials vied with each other for distinction, and at nightfall, when Australians with a machine gun had come up to relieve Lumsden’s Horse, the enemy retired, leaving a Maxim gun and twenty-six prisoners in our hands. Again, however, they had carried off all their heavy artillery and equipage, although General Ian Hamilton had that afternoon got possession of Winburg and was threatening their rear. The events of following days are summarised briefly by Colonel Lumsden in his official report:
Next morning, the 6th, saw us away at daybreak back for the yesterday’s battlefield and towards the rising sun. We could see clearly how clever had been the Boer plan of attack and how nearly they had caught some of us. We followed up their tracks for many miles, halted at noon for an hour, continued scouring the country—this time north—and eventually headed west, arriving at dusk at our new camp near Smaldeel, having advanced only three and a half miles after marching thirty.
Away at dawn on the 7th, and, heading north, tramped many a mile on foot, striking the railway between Vet and Winburg a few miles from Vet, and continuing north some distance. We halted for two or three hours, and then retraced our steps to a camp near the railway, reaching it after dusk.
On the 8th our regiment did flank guard for the Infantry during a march of twenty miles, saw innumerable buck, and commandeered twenty remounts on payment.
With the incident thus delicately touched upon by Colonel Lumsden an irresponsible trooper deals more at large in a way that enables us to understand the troubles by which some commanding officers were beset when their men, unlike Lumsden’s Horse, did not think it necessary to go through the formality of paying for what they took. Writing from Smaldeel, the trooper says:
Yesterday we went fairly straight, but about two or three miles too far, and had to come back; but we caught a young Boer leaving his farm with a rifle and ammunition, and we got another at the farm. The farm was looted of all its live-stock. The Colonel stopped it when he came up, but all the poultry was taken. Our men paid for everything. Kruger has told all these people that their farms will be burned and all the women taken prisoners. I think they were rather relieved when we left. One woman said her husband had come back three weeks ago and died of wounds, and they said the Free-Staters had lost terribly. They never hear officially, as they keep the deaths dark, but almost every farm has lost at least one man. In one we passed there were three widows. They are rather nice people and can nearly all speak English, and are rather nice-looking. We have fifty-one horses sick—about half with pink-eye and the other half sore backs and lame—but we make it up by degrees. Yesterday we collected eleven and the day before about the same, but in the night they got away. We also brought along 200 sheep and some cows; the sheep we have given over to the brigade, except about twenty for our own use. We carry with us to-morrow two days’ rations and four on the carts in case the transport don’t come up. McMinn and Francis, of my section, got lost leading sick horses. McMinn has attached himself to another brigade, but nothing has been heard of Francis.
The self-restraint exercised by soldiers who left untouched the stores and paid for all the live-stock they took at every farm where women and children had been left by the retreating Boers will be appreciated by all who know what it is to march and fight day after day on short rations. Though Lumsden’s Horse laid in that store of supplies, it did not last them many days, as we gather from a continuation of the Colonel’s diary:
On the 9th the usual daybreak start, our men with two days’ biscuits and one day’s feed for horses, but the officers with only some chocolate, as we relied on our mess cart being up. We were with the main body this day, till we neared the crossing of the Zand River at the Virginia Siding railway bridge, which had been blown up the day before, and at this point our companies were detached on each side of the drift to prevent a surprise. We heard General Hamilton having an artillery duel with the foe some miles off on our right, while on the left we saw the Mounted Infantry dislodging the enemy’s advance parties, the war balloon with Lord Roberts and Staff being near the drift itself. We received orders to concentrate and move away to the left, and on the far side of the river to join our corps—the 8th Mounted Infantry—on doing which we were immediately sent into action dismounted, firing at 1,500 yards, while the enemy’s pom-pom shells flew whistling over our heads as they aimed at our guns behind us. Our corps here got its first definite order, and that was, ‘Keep touch with the enemy at any cost.’ As this came from Lord Roberts direct, we proceeded to obey it to the letter, with the result that we were under shell and rifle fire for the remainder of the day. Having got well ahead of the rest of our brigade, in following up ‘Long Tom,’ which halted and fired on us at intervals, we kept running into the enemy’s supporting Infantry, whom we only managed to discomfit thoroughly when we got at them with our Maxim on the open hillside. Our losses were only two horses wounded. We were severely shelled several times, but we escaped casualties through being widely extended and also through the faulty bursting of the enemy’s shells. On one occasion ten shells burst among us within five minutes. About 3 P.M., in company with Colonel Ross, I went to endeavour to get some support, and brought up one company of Loch’s Horse, one company Tasmanians, and one company South Australian Rifles, afterwards meeting General Hutton with a battery Field Artillery, which promptly went into action on our left flank and shelled the Boers, who were then retiring. Unfortunately, our force was much too weak to attempt to follow them in the open. Had it not been so it was the opinion of General Hutton and Colonel Ross that we might have captured the whole of them—some 1,500, with a couple of guns. Dusk had then drawn on, and, having lost touch with our brigade, we marched under General Hutton’s orders to a camping ground seven miles off in the direction of Kroonstad, arriving about 9 P.M., without food for men or horses, and there was no firewood within miles.