I remarked that it was much worse to be taken prisoner at the beginning of a war than near the end, as he was.
'Do you think this is the end?' asked the Commandant quickly.
'I should ask you that.'
'No, no--not yet the end. They will fight a little more. Perhaps they will defend Pretoria--perhaps you will have to go to Lydenburg; but it will not be very long now.'
And then, since both he and his companion had been through the Natal campaign, we fell to discussing the various actions. Ian Hamilton came up while we were talking. I had just told the Commandant that we considered the Boers had made a fatal strategic mistake in throwing their main strength into Natal, instead of merely holding the passes, masking Mafeking and Kimberley, and marching south into the colony with every man and gun they could scrape together. He admitted that perhaps that might be so; 'but,' said he, 'our great mistake in Natal was not assaulting Ladysmith--the Platrand position, you know--the day after our victory at Lombard's Kop. We blame Joubert for that. Many of us wanted to go on then. There were no fortifications; the soldiers were demoralised. If once we had taken the Platrand (Cæsar's Camp) you could not have held the town. How many men had you on top of it?'
'Only a picket for the first week,' said the General.
'Ah! I knew we could have done it. What would have happened then?'
'We should have had to turn you out.'
The Commandant smiled a superior smile. The General continued: 'Yes--with the bayonet--at night; or else, as you say, the town could not have been held.'
'Presently,' said Botha, 'you pulled yourselves together, but for three days after Nicholson's Nek there was no fear of bayonets. If we had stormed you then--(then we had all our men and no Buller to think about)--you would not have been able to turn us out.'