LIEUTENANT G.A. NEVILLE.
With an editorial desire to link the separate operations into one chain, I may here describe from personal experience what happened away on that left flank where French and Hamilton were hotly engaged with the outposts of a Boer force, whose object in holding the high kopjes between Gatsrand and Klipriviersberg was obviously to force upon us a wider flanking movement, by which the western columns would be further separated from the main body and thus unable to co-operate with it effectively. It is improbable that Louis Botha had any hope of being able to defeat the British forces in detail by delivering a counter-stroke on each column in turn. It is far more likely that his idea even at that period was to lengthen out the British line of communications as far as possible, thus weakening it by attenuation and making it more vulnerable to attacks by small raiding parties. Co-operating with him was Christian De Wet, to whom such a plan would have been sure to commend itself as offering a chance for numbers of Free-Staters to slip through the girdle that was gradually closing about them, re-cross the Vaal, and harass their enemies on ground where local knowledge would give them every advantage.
On this supposition the resistance offered to General French some twenty-five miles north-west of Vereeniging had peculiar interest for me, because I watched the operations there with some foreknowledge of the probable Boer tactics gained in a curious way. Four days earlier I had breakfasted at a farm next to Christian De Wet’s, not far from Rodewal station. The farmer invited myself and a companion into his house, above which a white flag was flying, and when told that this was our Queen’s birthday he produced a bottle of whisky with which to drink to Her Majesty’s health, which we did readily enough, although he declined to join us. There was no unfriendliness or want of hospitality in that, and, indeed, we should have mistrusted the man if he had put on a pretence of loyalty because he had been induced to hoist the white flag as an emblem of neutrality. There were no troops at that moment nearer than Lumsden’s Horse, who could be seen on the sky-line about four miles westward, moving towards Vredefort Road Station.
From that direction presently came a young Boer well mounted but unarmed. His wary movements at first seemed to indicate that he had no desire to be seen by our troops, but our host explained that the road took many turns and twists which might puzzle a stranger. The horseman was evidently not well pleased to find Englishmen at the farm, but this we, being somewhat vain, attributed to jealousy, seeing that the youth and our host’s comely daughter were exchanging glances in which there might have been a world of other meaning, though we suspected it not. We knew instinctively that they were not quite strangers, but there were no signs of friendly recognition in our presence. After a brief conversation, carried on between the young man and the farmer aside, though neither of us could have understood the taal they talked, our host came forward and explained that his neighbour was simply riding from one farm to another, where the family had all surrendered and obtained their permits to live in peace. There was nothing to be done then except shake hands and part, but the next day my Basuto servant, who, having lived in Johannesburg, had a wholesome dread of Boer sjamboks, gave me a full interpretation of what he had overheard the young man say in that neighbourly talk with our burgher friend. The burden of it was that this guileless youth, Ferreira by name, had been sent by Christian De Wet to let everybody know why the Free State commandos were retiring with Botha’s Transvaalers instead of defending their own homesteads. It was only to lure the English on to destruction, and Christian De Wet promised that he would slip back again in a day or two to Rodewal and play Old Harry with the invaders.
Up to the time of joining General French’s force in the afternoon of May 28 I had regarded this as a vain boast. A closer study of Boer tactics, however, was enough to show what they were playing for, and I watched with some apprehension our Cavalry moving westward in vain attempts to outflank the mobile Boers, who were galloping from kopje to kopje on one side of a vast dam fringed by treacherous mires which French’s squadrons could not cross. Ian Hamilton meanwhile conformed to this movement without getting touch of the enemy or drawing near to their stronghold, which was obviously on the frowning crest of Klipriviersberg (shortened by the Boers colloquially to Riviersberg).
Being alone, and far from my supplies, I slept supperless that night in a deserted Boer store, for the sake of such shelter as a wall and roof might give from a keen icy wind that swept in gusts through the broken windows. I had neither overcoat nor blanket, and saw nothing to lie on but a filthy floor or the bare laths of a rickety iron bedstead. I chose the latter. Having been in the saddle from 5 in the morning until 10 at night, with the exception of necessary halts for my horse to graze, I was soon oblivious to the discomfort of that rude couch, and, for all I knew, my pillow might have been softest down instead of hard saddle-flaps. But long before daybreak the cravings of a hunger that had only been tantalised by coffee and biscuit twenty-four hours earlier awoke me to a consciousness that my limbs were aching with cold and sore from the chafing of those sharp-edged laths. Striking a light, I looked at the little thermometer attached to my wallet, and found that it registered ten degrees of frost. More sleep was not to be thought of, so I groped through the darkness to a stall only less draughty than the store I had slept in, found my horse shivering there, rubbed him down with a wisp of straw, by way of restoring his circulation and my own, and waited for the dawn. Then I found my way across vleis and spruits to where General Ian Hamilton’s force was moving off through dense mists from Cyferfontein to attack the Boer position on Riviersberg. When the rising sun dispelled those mists the Gordons and City Imperial Volunteers were spread out in thin lines stretching fan-like across a segment of the veldt, and so they went on hour after hour without finding any sign of Boers. The pangs of hunger being all-potent, I rode off in search of a farm, hoping also to come across another British column within a few miles. After an hour or more I was gladdened by the sight of Haartebeestefontein Farm standing in the midst of green mealie-patches and belted about by eucalyptus trees—the very picture of peace. At that moment four Boers drove out from the farm-yard in a well-horsed Cape cart, but made no sign at sight of me except by driving the faster. They needn’t have been in such a hurry to get away from an unarmed and famished Englishman, who had not one comrade within miles. But luckily they didn’t know.
Though French’s Cavalry had been at the farm a day before me and ransacked the Veldt-Cornet’s deserted house, in search of any documents that might have been left there, ducks were swimming in a pond close by and fowls cackling about the sheds from which some Kaffirs presently appeared. To my request, for bread or eggs or milk they had but one answer, ‘Ikona.’ The sight of a loaded revolver might have produced some effect, but, having none, I dismounted and made a systematic search. If food in any shape was there it must have been very cleverly hidden. Finding not so much as a bundle of oat-hay for my horse to nibble at, I rode on across ridge and hollow another five miles or so, and then came upon a little dorp or hamlet, from which all the inhabitants except a Dutch schoolmaster and his wife had disappeared. They declared that not a scrap of food had been left behind. But the good vrau gave me a cup of excellent coffee, and with thanks for the best of hospitality, which gives all it can, I jogged along another league or two, following the straight road towards Johannesburg and expecting every minute to fall in with the rearguard of a column going that way. All the while I had not seen a single soldier or the trace of an iron-shod hoof that was not at least a day old. The unmistakable marks of ‘ammunition’ boots were not there, and neither horse nor man had left footprints on tracks where the morning’s thaw had softened them. At last from a rugged ridge I saw smoke curling up from houses among the trees that marked the course of a river some two miles ahead. Not caring much by that time whether Britons or Boers might be in those houses, I rode straight for the nearest of them, which turned out to be a farm in the barn of which I saw much forage.
Evidently none of our mounted troops had been there, but it was too late to think of turning back. That, in all probability, would have brought a Mauser bullet whistling about my ears. ‘Bluff’ was the only game to play in such circumstances, so I called to a Kaffir servant, told him to fetch forage for my horse, and then swaggered towards the house as if I had been a Staff officer with a whole regiment at my back. On the stoep a bearded Boer met me. He had been lying prone on ground where rhenoster bushes grew. Their burrs were still sticking to his serge jacket, the left elbow of which was stained by the red earth on which it had rested, and his right thumb was black with a coating of burnt melinite. I saw it all as he raised one hand in a sort of half-military salute, and extended the other to welcome me, and in that moment I knew he had just come down from Riviersberg heights for lunch in the intervals of fighting. So, still playing an assumed part, I asked what weapons he had, and he brought me a well-worn Martini-Henry; but that was not what I wanted. After some show of misunderstanding the Boer brought his wife, who talked English fluently enough, and when I had explained to her the awful consequences of concealing arms or ammunition from a British officer, holding plenary powers of punishment, there was no necessity for saying any more. Without even waiting for my words to be interpreted, her husband went out and came back with a Mauser rifle, the fouling of which was still moist round its breech-chamber, and a bandolier half full of cartridges. These I took charge of, not knowing what I should do with them if a Boer commando happened to come that way. As to British troops—well, at any rate, I had no hesitation in assuring the Boer that his household would be safe from them. I did not think it necessary to add that none would be likely to come anywhere near him. In return for my leniency (save the mark!) he suggested something that had been in my mind all the while, and thereupon his good wife brought a deliciously white loaf and milk that was fragrant in its freshness. She was sorry that they ‘had nothing better to offer.’ Nothing better! Heavens, how sweet it tasted! Yet I was restrained from eating or drinking much by the thought that any show of my famished state would give me away. It was difficult to parry all questions concerning the number of troops I had with me, so I said that my men must have found a lot of arms to collect or they would have been there sooner. Upon that the Boer volunteered information as to the number of rifles which could possibly be in farms or cottages round about. All this information I noted down ostentatiously, wondering as I did so how on earth I should get out of the hole into which circumstances were thrusting me deeper and deeper.
At that moment, as luck would have it, two West Australians of the 4th Regiment M.I. turned up, and, leaving them to collect the arms of which such careful note had been made, and to eat the remnants of my unfinished meal I mounted to ride off in quest of their main body, taking care, however, to command proper protection for the house in which I had been so hospitably entertained. ‘Well played,’ said one, with much outward show of respect, as he produced a bottle of brandy from the ample pocket of his ‘coat British warm,’ and offered me a nip. I saw that he, at any rate, understood the game. At Eikenhof Drift I found the main body which turned out to be no more than a patrol. Its appearance drew fire from the Boers, who were apparently holding that road into Johannesburg strongly. They began to show in groups of twenty and thirty on kopjes where no sign of them had been seen before, and were evidently meditating a movement by which the drift might have been outflanked. To prevent this Major Pilkington, who was in command, detached some men from his scanty force to hold two smaller fords, and in a short time there were several casualties from rifle fire at short range. Just then we could hear the roar of guns where General Ian Hamilton was attacking miles away on the left. Hard pressed, yet determined to hold on where he was, Major Pilkington had not a galloper whom he could send with a message to his divisional General, Pole-Carew. I volunteered to carry it, and started for a ride of twenty miles across unknown country, making sure that I should hit off some column within that distance. But all the troops under the immediate command of Lord Roberts had been following the line of railway—where their front was cleared by the 8th Mounted Infantry, with which were Lumsden’s Horse and other regiments of Colonel Henry’s brigade—in a turning movement, the extent of which will be appreciated after perusal of the preceding narrative. I had ridden a distance that would have measured nearly thirty miles from point to point without seeing more than a small patrol of British troops. That night, or early the next morning, when Major Pilkington had withdrawn his small force, a thousand Free State Boers crossed Eikenhof Drift and got in rear of the British columns to rejoin De Wet. Meanwhile, with French or Hamilton on the west, and in advance of the main body on the east, deeds were being done that sealed the fate of Johannesburg and Pretoria. Lumsden’s Horse took a full share of honours that day, though their Colonel does not descant upon these at great length in his official report, but contents himself with the following record: