Thieves quarry, p.20
A History of the Regular Mounted Infantry, page 20
A day or two later a squadron of Broadwood’s new Yeomanry were ambushed near the Rhenoster River, one officer and thirty-five men being captured. They were later released after being relieved of their horses, rifles and such other accoutrements as the Boers had use for.
During this experimental drive one or more officers of the South Australians were attached to the advanced and rear-guard companies to see how scouting was carried out. On one occasion a young Australian officer turned up for such instruction on rearguard, having been with the same company on advanced guard a few days previously. ‘I thought you were a Captain,’ said the captain of the rearguard cheerily, on seeing his acquaintance arrive as a lieutenant. ‘So I was,’ answered the Australian, ‘but my major reduced me!’ Further enquiry showed the junior ranks were having quite a cheery time of promotion, the scale sliding up and down according to the breakfast complexion of the officer commanding. Unfortunately, a private report to De Lisle, on reaching bivouac, put a stop to the sporting sideshow in promising military careers. The line was again reached on 20 April, the ten days’ outing resulting in the capture of 50,000 head of stock, seventy vehicles, and about 100 tons of flour and grain of which William’s column attached accounted for about one third. How misleading these figures were to the real progress of the campaign is shown by the casualty list, both British and Boers having each three killed and five wounded.
The next sweep, however, was to be more ambitious and a little more complicated in design. It was in fact an attempt to sweep the far bigger triangle which had the same line of railway for base and Botha Pass as apex. Other columns were again called in to co-operate with Charles Knox from the south between Senekal and Lindley; Western, who had replaced Williams in command of his column, again in prolongation on the left; and with columns from Standerton and Heidelberg in the Transvaal to hold the drift over the Vaal. Elliott’s main drive was to be in three places, taking the form of a rough S-shape. First eastwards on a 40 mile frontage between Heilbron and Lindley, then swinging north between Heilbron and Frankfort to the Vaal, then south again with the Klip River as his left flank. There, early drives differed from those of some months later in that there were no organised butts to drive against, while clearing the country of supplies occupied quite as much attention as the capture of prisoners. They were in fact more in the nature of great cavalry raids. Night marches were constantly undertaken to surprise laagers or farms and columns moved in close co-operation, but at night there were many gaps and avenues of escape, while daylight was chiefly occupied in clearing country of stock and food supplies. In official accounts no distinction has been made between the two operations. All these movements came under the general name of ‘drives’. To those who took part, however, the methods employed varied so greatly that it may help the reader to follow the course of events more easily if ‘raid’ and ‘drive’ are each used in the proper place.
Elliot moved out on 24 April. Bethune on the left, De Lisle centre and Broadwood on the right. Boers were met the second day out, but no serious resistance was met till the swing north at Bachante on 2 May. From here, three days’ foray was made on light kit. Broadwood and De Lisle’s transport being placed together in the meantime. A small laager was captured yielding five prisoners, eleven vehicles and a good deal of stock. From Bachante, De Lisle was temporarily transferred to command Broadwood’s column. Next morning the combined column found itself in touch with strong parties of Boers. Tafel Kop, covering Vrede, was held by 300 Boers and another commando, 250 strong, was working on the left front. Some three hours of skirmishing ensued.
Two active and enterprising young Boer commandants were in charge of the district with commandos composed mostly of young men like themselves. One, a young Scot by the name of Alec Rose, passes out of history with the close of the campaign; the other, Manie Botha, nephew of General Louis Botha, was to rise to high rank as a British General in East Africa in the Great War. During the following three months the column was to get on very close terms with these two fine young leaders who fought, in all, twelve separate engagements of three hours’ duration during this period as well as innumerable skirmishes. The 6th MI and these two commandos had real respect for each other and, quite unknown to the authorities, from time to time, through medium of the regimental doctor attending Boer casualties by white flag request, a bottle of whiskey or tin of cigarettes would pass on the one hand, with samples of coffee substitute, or a platted straw tobacco pouch worked by the sisters of the men in the field, on the other. It was all very irregular; but doubtless tending to make the eventual settlement easier. The figures, though not, of course, the faces of the leaders, were well known to both sides by constant contact. For the next week Tafel Kop, a high, flat-topped hill some 2-3 miles long, was made headquarters while foraging parties ranged the country round.
On 5 May the picquets of ‘C’ Company were heavily attacked in a thick fog and the Boers eventually driven off with casualties, one shell killing three Boers in a neighbouring donga. Halfway through the week, camp was shifted to another side of the kopje. The grass of the old camp was very good and ‘D’ Company was left on grazing guard. It was a day of alternative fog and sunshine. The Boers knew the camp had moved and giving ample time, as they supposed, for the rearguard to move off, eventually crept up under cover of the mist to search the ground for cartridges etc, often casually left behind on striking camp. Hearing one or two short bursts of fire the captain, who was sitting below the picquet line reading a book, strolled up casually to see what was up. The mist had again temporarily fallen, and he was standing on the skyline, pipe in mouth, trying to take in the situation. Suddenly the mist lifted and for the first and only time in all their casual acquaintance he and Manie Botha found themselves face to face. Botha, armed, raised his rifle instinctively and fired point blank, then dropped to creep away. The bullet hit the bowl of the captain’s pipe, broke the pipestem in his mouth, and knocked him head over heels with the shock. The picquet line seeing their captain fall, at once fixed bayonets and charged. The Boers, intent rather on loot than battle, hurriedly made off, losing three of their number wounded before they got clear. By now the sun had drawn off the mist and with the camp roused the Boers cleared off for good. That afternoon the Boers asked for the ambulance for the three wounded men and Manie asked if the captain was badly hit. Hearing what had happened he had the cheek to claim that he had only aimed at the pipe and sent a corncob pipe to replace it! The Boers had some reason for their activity. Vrede, their headquarters, was only 15 miles distant, and the little town had had to be hastily evacuated until the British should move on. Vrede itself was cleared on the 8th after a wearisome night march by ‘D’ Company, a squadron of South Australians and a gun, all under Major Sladen, but the Boers had already done most of the clearing. They had, as a matter of fact, fought another three hours’ action doing most of the attacking the day previously whilst the womenfolk and other burghers were clearing out of the town.
The march north to the Vaal was resumed at 2.00 am on 10 May and, shortly after daylight, the Boers again attacked, and a sharp three-hour scrap followed. A small party of seven South Australians were cut off on the right flank and captured to be released later minus their horses, rifle and such equipment as the Boers needed. The Boers, however, lost one killed and four wounded in the morning fighting. Next day ‘D’ Company were left on the campsite to get in touch with Coville’s Yeomanry, who were expected an hour or so later whilst the main body moved on. Finding only a small body of troops, the Yeomanry, who were newly out from home, imagined them to be the Boers. Without waiting to find out and paying no attention to an officer with a white flag they started to attack. When the fight looked like getting serious a few shells were put over their heads by the section of guns with the rearguard, which brought the Yeomanry to their senses. They bought their experience with three men slightly wounded.
On 15 May, on reaching the junction of the Klip River and the Vaal, the column moved south along the valley of the Klip, De Lisle being back again in command of his own column. The country was rugged and the Boers constantly attacked the flanks and rearguards. Night raids by a squadron or MI company to a likely drift or to some outlying farm took place daily. On one such raid the cavalry major, in charge of a squadron of dragoons in a neighbouring column, successfully surprised a small party of Boers asleep in a farm, including the commandant of a local commando. Whilst the other four or five prisoners were easily secured, the commandant hung vigorously to the bedrail at the foot. Instead of skinning his knuckles with the heel of a boot or a rifle butt, which would have forced him to let go, the major and he had a glorious tug of war in which the major was worsted. Other Boers in the neighbouring farms of the hamlet woke up and the major was compelled to come away empty handed, to the great amusement of all Elliott’s force, as the story rapidly spread. While the columns worked in the rugged glens of the Drakensberg, Colville’s Imperial Yeomanry drove the great herds of captured stock along the narrow Klip Valley which runs between the great range and its outlying range of the Gemsbokburg. The Boers holding the passes of the Gemsbokburg in particular put up considerable resistance. Lowe, who had taken over from Bethune whilst the latter was acting as Chief of the Staff to Elliot, had to call on De Lisle for assistance before he could force his way through. On 19 May the stock captured by De Lisle: some 3,000 horses, 700 cattle and 16,000 sheep, were driven over the Klip River by an improvised bridge made of waggons and sent with two companies of the 6th as escort to Bothas Pass, ‘D’ Company being further entrusted with twenty-three Boer prisoners destined for Natal. On arrival at the pass the stock was duly handed over to Colville to join his great herds. Not so, however, the prisoners, as a quiet unauthorised opportunity to slip down to Ingogo Station, on the Natal railway, and to personally hand them over there presented itself. Bothas Pass from the Free State side appears merely as a gap between two low grass hills on a steeply sloping ridge of downs. Beyond these two little hills, however, the range falls in the steep escarpment of mountain to the plains of Natal, the road winding down a mountain spur to Ingogo, just visible in the far distance. On the two small mounds were the various column commanders with Elliot and his staff making reports of the drive. The company with their prisoners filed by as quietly and unobtrusively as they could. General Bethune, however, spotted them and sent a staff officer to fetch the OC company to enquire as to his mission. Arrived in front of Bethune the officer was beginning an apologetic reply about having prisoners to hand over. Bethune, upon seeing who it was, laughed and said, ‘So you want to go into Natal – got the Gordon Company under you?’
He replied, ‘Yes sir.’
Bethune prompted, ‘Only the Gordons?’
Again, came the reply, ‘Yes sir.’
‘Alright young man, slip along quickly out of sight before General Elliot sees you,’ and away the company plunged out of sight and mind, not to reach Ingogo till nearly dusk. There receipts were taken, with the station written large by special request in order that the company might qualify for the Natal bar. Camp was not regained till midnight, but the company was used to lone treks in the dark and Boers were unlikely to be met in so general a concentration of troops. The company later found they had qualified for the Natal clasp, the only troops in De Lisle’s column to do so and with Bethune, an ex-Gordon, to thank for the opportunity. The explanation of the late arrival back was not enthusiastically received by the column commander, who thought the company had got lost.
Before entering Harrismith to refit, Elliot next directed his attention to the Wittekopjes, an amphitheatre of hills at the southern extremity of the Gemsbokburg and some 25 miles from Botha Pass. This strong natural fortress was not, at the time, marked on any map and had somehow so far escaped attention. Some 400 Boers were reported to be in hiding there with a large amount of stock. On near approach it was found to resemble a gigantic Norman castle, the precipitous face of the hills taking the form of giant bastions and a keep. Like so many of these hill strongholds it had few roads of ingress and egress. Admirable for a siege defence, it was liable to prove a trap for converging columns. Memories of Prinsloo’s surrender overshadowed the whole district and finding Elliot’s columns converging on them from three sides, the Boers slipped away as discreetly as they could. 1,000 good horses had nevertheless unavoidably to be left in British hands. That night was bitterly cold when Captain Shaw of ‘C’ Company, going to his hut before dinner, found a cobra coiled up in his valise. Removing himself quietly before the snake was disturbed, it was shot with a gun and then thrown writhing on the blazing mess fire, to make certain it was dead. In a supreme effort the snake nearly got one of the group of officers standing around before it fell back dead.
Harrismith was entered in triumph with 1,700 horses for the Remount depot and a two-day halt was made for supplies. Some 190,000 head of stock had been sent into Natal as a result of the raids, in addition to the 300 vehicles captured and the refugee families already there. Only the aforementioned twenty-three prisoners had, however, been captured by these columns combined. Leaving Harrismith on 25 May, Elliot started back on the return journey to Kroonstadt, clearing the country of supplies en route. The scope of the return raid was to be the country east of the Wilge River as far north as Vrede and thence via Reitz and Lindley to Kroonstadt. Large herds of sheep were encountered on the way. Already driven hard by the Boers it was found impossible to bring these poor animals along even at the slow rate of progress of the columns clearing the country. They had to be slaughtered at the midday halt and at camp. The work was generally done by natives with knobkerries but, at times, the main body of a company on detached duty or on rearguard had to do the unpleasant duty with the bayonet during a halt. It was a pitiful business. Naturally choice bits of mutton were to be had for the taking. Kidneys and chops were a glut on the market. Resistance was met the first day out and several sharp encounters took place, assistance on two occasions having to be asked from another column, with the different spruits athwart the road to Vrede being held in turn. Several attempts were also made to cut off the rearguard, undercover of veld fires. An especially stiff scrap took place near Cornelius spruit where the Boers had to abandon a big drove of 28,000 sheep which the column found themselves compelled to kill that evening in camp.
Vrede was reached at dawn on 29 May, after a very cold night march, and found empty, but the baggage guard, arriving later, was fired on most of the way. From Vrede the column turned southeast halting on the banks of the Wilge on 5 June and capturing a small laager of twelve waggons with a good head of cattle in the fog before arrival in camp. The natives of the laager revealed the news that a very much larger convoy was moving south, escaping from the more northerly columns and some 15 miles to the west of the river. Sladen, with 200 of the 6th MI consisting mainly of ‘A’ and ‘D’ Companies and 100 South Australians attached, was dispatched in the early hours of the morning to intercept them. The adventure, before the day was out, was to prove one of the most costly actions in which 6th MI were engaged. The convoy was duly sighted shortly after daylight and the usual wild gallop by two lines of horsemen down the waggons shouting ‘hands up’ followed. Surprised and outnumbered the Boers made no resistance and the convoy was parked near some kraals on Graspan Farm. Most of the occupants of the 120 waggons were women, among them a Red Cross nurse from Holland who complained bitterly and was rather curtly told to ‘shut up’. Of the male combatants some managed to escape at the first rush but forty-five armed burghers were captured. By the time the laager had been duly parked, the women pacified, it was nearly 10.00 pm and Sladen sent off sixty of the Australians to inform De Lisle, whose advanced guard was due to arrive an hour later. Meanwhile a small party of escaped burghers had ridden off to Reitz some 7 miles distant where, unknown to the British, de la Rey with a picked escort had come to confer with Steyn and de Wet. The two latter were escorted by Commandant Davel, leader of de Wet’s bodyguard. The messenger found the Boer laagers finishing breakfast and ready to move should necessity arise. Covered by Davel and his scouts this picked body of Boer fighting men moved off to the scene of action, picking up a small commando en route which swelled their numbers, to some 200 men.
Meanwhile, Sladen’s Australians had lost their way, and De Lisle hearing nothing further was fully occupied getting his column over the drift over the Wilge, which proved a very bad one. Shortly before noon, by which time De Lisle was expected, large bodies of horsemen riding in regular formation were seen on the skyline to the west and were mistaken for Bethune’s column. Captain Craufurd and Lieutenant White were sent out in two directions to direct them to the captured convoy, no thought of Boers at the time being entertained. Sladen, after posting his outposts, had placed ‘D’ Company in charge of the prisoners in the kraals; the remainder of his force being grouped around the waggons. When, too late, Craufurd found himself challenged by a line of Boer scouts 20 paces ahead, lying in the grass, flight was impossible, so he threw his bandolier high in the air before surrendering. This slight warning proved sufficient for an immediate alarm and stand to. Finding further concealment impossible the Boers, under Davel, now charged down on the laager driving the outposts back on the main body at once, the British retiring through the waggons to the group of kraals and a cattle enclosure nearby. Owing to the presence of the women and children in the waggons, the troops refrained from firing through them thus enabling their assailants to come to close quarters at small loss and establish themselves close to the kraals. A captured sentry over the waggons was sent in with a white flag demanding surrender as the British were outnumbered and practically surrounded. As he approached the kraal, Sergeant Rothnie of the Gordons shouted to him to drop his flag and lie down, which he did, remaining miraculously unhurt under close-range fire during the remainder of the fight. The women and children were now got away by the Boers, along the rear line of waggons to everyone’s relief. A fierce fight now raged for well over three hours at only a few yards’ range. The MI had the best cover as the Boers held only a low mud wall and an outlying hut with the shelter of the row of waggons. They were, on the other hand, some of the pick of the Boer Army and all crack shots. Both sides suffered heavily.
