OUR CASE GROWS MORE AND MORE DESPERATE
Blockhouses were also erected in the northern and south-eastern portions
of the Orange Free State. One line from Kroonstad to Lindley was
finished towards the middle of December; another from Botha's Pass to
Vrede and Frankfort at the end of the year; and a third from Harrismith
to Bethlehem shut off, with the portion that had already been built from
Fouriesburg to Bethlehem, the grain districts behind Nauwpoort, about
the middle of January 1902. People had all kinds of ideas about these
blockhouses. Some thought that they did not signify much, and might be
compared to the flags which are sometimes planted in front of a flock of
sheep. At first the sheep remain within the line, but soon they find
that the flags form no insuperable barrier, and then they graze up to,
and then to the other side of the flags. Others again could not conceal
their fears. The English, they thought, were making the circle narrower,
and we should eventually have to flee from place to place until we were
overtaken and overwhelmed by superior forces. We soon found that there
was truth in both views. The circle was drawn closer and closer. If the
English columns were marching about, we had to keep our horses tied at
nights to be ready every moment to retire to the right or to the left,
so as not to be driven against the blockhouses, or we had to retreat
before the enemy until near some line of blockhouses, and then suddenly
face about and either pass between our pursuers or go round them. On the
other hand, the danger of the blockhouses was not so great as had been
feared. Burghers could always pass them on horseback, and sometimes they
even did so with carts and herds of cattle.
1902.
The New Year had again come; and with the year new trouble and
ever-increasing distress. It was not easy for us, in spite of all that
had thus constantly gone against us, to remain hopeful. Now and then we
read something in the newspapers, picked up on the spots where the
English had encamped, that encouraged us somewhat. What we read of
Anglophobia in Germany would cheer us up a little and revive the
expectation in us that the war would soon be over. But when we would
read in the same papers that the English Government was resolved to
continue the war at all costs, and when we were constantly eye-witnesses
of the uncivilised manner in which the troops carried on the war, then,
as far at least as I was concerned, there appeared to be no prospect of
a speedy termination--no sign in our clouded sky that the storm was
breaking. "Watchman," so I seemed to cry, "what of the night? what of
the night?" and it was as if I always received the answer: "The morning
has come, and yet it is night."
What especially did not tend to encourage was the increasing violence
with which the English continued their destructive work. This took place
in the districts to the east of Lindley, chiefly in the month from 10th
January to 10th February. Especially was this the case where the column
of Colonel Rimington passed.
Colonel Rimington now passed through portions of the districts of
Bethlehem and Harrismith, in the neighbourhood of Reitz. When he came to
a farmhouse, the first questions of his officers and soldiers to the
housewife were, "Where is your husband? Where is de Wet? Where is Steyn?
Where are the Boers?" The woman could honestly reply that she did not
know, whereupon they threatened to burn down her house, if she gave no
information; and while the conversation was still going on she was
summarily ordered to carry out her bedding; the soldiers would then with
loaded guns and fixed bayonets storm into the house to seek for Boers,
under the beds and in clothes presses. They then smashed the
looking-glasses, so that the Boers should make no heliographs of them.
Further, they took everything they wanted to: pillow-cases to serve as
bags for fruit, etc., sheets, knives and forks, even when these had
already been carried out along with the bedding. Pots and pans the
housewife might in no case retain, even all the dishes and plates were
smashed. Worse still, the woman was robbed of all her food; what the
soldiers could not eat, such as flour, was thrown out upon the ground,
and trodden under foot in the mud and dirt. Bread was never spared; out
of the bin, from the table, or hot from the oven, it was taken, and not
a crumb left behind. If there were any meat in pot and pan on the fire,
then it was carried off, pot and pan and all. And thus the soldiers took
the food out of the children's mouths. The mother remained behind with
nothing. If she asked what she was to give her two, three, or six
children to eat, the rough retort was, "Ask de Wet that?" "Never," said
one woman to me, "was it so hard for me, as when my children cried to me
for bread, and I had nothing to give them."
And then the soldiers would ride away to do the same at the next house.
The woman left behind at the ruins of her house, took some of the zinc
plates, laid them sloping against the wall of her destroyed house, and
remained there until her husband came and brought her some food, and
made a dwelling for her again, as well as he was able. Besides, all this
I have heard from women that fearfully insulting language was used
towards them by the rude soldiers. This certainly was not indulged in by
all, for, as the woman readily admitted, there were some camps which
passed through that were blameless. The armed Kaffirs revelled in being
able to address the women familiarly with "thou" and "thee." "Where is
your (jou) husband?--If he were here now I would shoot him dead." And
they marched through the house as freely as the soldiers did.
It often happened that the soldiers broke into a house late at night,
and forced their way even into the bedrooms, where the women lay in bed,
under pretext of hunting for hidden Boers.
On the 10th of January the column of Colonel Rimington came to our
hospital at Bezuidenhout's Drift. Notwithstanding that Dr. Poutsma had
been allowed by Lord Kitchener to come and practise amongst us, and that
the Red Cross flag was displayed that morning, as usual, over two of the
buildings, and over the ambulance waggon, some soldiers stormed the
hospital. This is what Dr. Poutsma, _inter alia_, says in an affidavit:
"In and around the building shots were fired, and about fifteen yards
from me, at the back door, a horseman dismounted, and kneeling down
fired at me. 'Hands up!' he cried, and notwithstanding that I was, of
course, unarmed, and moreover had put up my hands, he continued firing,
whereupon I fled into the house. When I got to the kitchen some shots
were sent after me, but wonderful to relate, without the intended
result, as was the case also with six revolver shots which a captain
fired partly at me, partly into the kitchen, and partly into the large
sick ward. The captain in question, whose name is unknown to me, was so
disappointed at all his shots having missed me, that he sprang towards
me with the empty revolver, pushed it under my nose, and shouted, 'I'm
damned sorry that I didn't shoot you.'
"Meanwhile the shooting inside the house continued at the three
nursing-sisters, the Assistant A. van Toorenenbergen, and at me, and,
most horrible of all, at the helpless wounded burghers who lay on their
beds. I saw one of the soldiers outside kneeling down, and resting his
gun on the window-sill he fired two shots at the wounded burgher
Wessels, who, however was not hit, but was covered with dust from the
wall beside him, where it was struck by the bullet."
The doctor now went to the veranda, and was there arrested by order of a
major. But when the Assistant Mr. van Toorenenbergen shouted, "Doctor,
Sister Rautenbach is wounded," he wrenched himself loose, and went into
the large sick ward.
"I found the young lady," so Dr. Poutsma declares further, "bathed in
her blood. Four bullets had frightfully mutilated her."
The shooting ceased, and the doctor bandaged Miss Rautenbach. Then some
officers entered, and then came the sickening: "I am awfully sorry."
When Dr. Poutsma afterwards spoke to Colonel Rimington about this
occurrence, he expressed his regret that Miss Rautenbach had been
wounded, but added that he would not have been sorry in the least had
Dr. Poutsma been shot, as one of his own doctors had shortly before been
killed by the Boers at Tafel Kop.[12] Further, he said that the Red
Cross flag had not been noticed, and that he had never heard anything
about a hospital there. He also wished Dr. Poutsma to admit that all
that had happened was "an accident," which, as may be supposed, was
refused. Not even sacred edifices were spared. At Reitz the troops broke
up the floor of the Dutch Reformed Church to make fires with. The
churches at Frankfort, Ventersburg, and Lindley were burnt down.
[Footnote 12: This happened during a fight.]
So things went on. About our alleged misdeeds we saw reports in almost
every newspaper that we picked up; but we had no opportunity to make
known to the world what the English were doing to us.
The English wanted to make an end to the war. They tried all means to
attain this object speedily; also proclamations! but proclamations, as
they had discovered, had had but little effect on the Boers. Especially
had this been the case with regard to the one which had offered the
Boers a chance of laying down their arms up to the 15th of September.
What other plan could they now devise to end the struggle which,
notwithstanding all this devastation, still continued, and appeared
likely to continue indefinitely? Surely not another proclamation? No,
but a letter! Lord Kitchener wrote a letter, an extract from which was,
in the beginning of January 1902, left lying about for the information
of the Boers on the farm where the English camps had halted. Lord
Kitchener advised the Boers, in this letter, to take the matter into
their own hands, because, as he asserted, President Steyn and General de
Wet were resolved to ruin them utterly. The Boers should therefore act
for themselves and lay down their arms, and he promised them that if
they--not one by one, but in small numbers,--a corporal with ten men, a
Field-Cornet with twenty-five, and a Commandant with fifty
men--surrendered, they would then not be banished. They would, moreover,
not lose their remaining cattle, and would, moreover, after the war,
receive aid from the British Government to help them up again.[13] How
shameful it was that, ever since Nauwpoort, the British Government had
been doing its utmost to induce the burghers to commit treason. But _all
is fair in love and war_ is their own motto.
[Footnote 13: The Extract was as follows:--
[Translation.]
Let the Boers know that de Wet's assertions _re_ Peace and Arbitration
are utter falsehoods, and that it is my opinion that de Wet and Steyn,
having nothing to lose, wish to ruin the Boers utterly. If they (the
Boers) desire to have peace, we are ready; and the only means I can see
to bring this about is for the burghers to take this matter into their
own hands, and to elect about two or three representatives to meet me on
this subject, when I feel assured we could so arrange it that they
should not lose the rest of their property and cattle. We shall be glad,
when the war is over, to help them as far as possible with their farming
operations. It is my wish to see the burghers with their wives and
children back at their farms. Their losses are the fault of their
leaders, who are responsible for urging them on to continue a struggle
which they know to be useless. If they follow these men, further
destruction of their property is unavoidable; if they take the matter
into their own hands, I feel certain that we can arrange matters; and we
have the best wish to help the Boers, who have constantly been misled. I
do not wish individuals to surrender, as I prefer that those who are
dissatisfied shall remain out with their commandos, and should use their
influence to bring about a complete and not a partial peace, so that all
may return to their farms.... But if Boers surrender, they will not be
sent away, and they will retain their property and cattle. A corporal
must bring in ten armed men, a field-cornet twenty-five, and a
commandant fifty men, to entitle them or admit them to such
considerations.]
This "paper bomb," however, did very little execution. As little notice
was taken of it as of the recent proclamation. Our people stood firm.
That our people as a people remained steadfast became more and more
evident to me. However much our numbers in South Africa may have become
diminished through the deportation of great numbers, and through the
still greater numbers who had lost courage and had surrendered, our
people as a people still always continued to exist. This the English
were anxious to deny. They were fond of asserting that it was only a
small fraction of the people that still resisted. This was not the
case. It is true that it was only a minority that were still able to
continue the struggle; but the heart of the nation, as a whole, was
still always faithful. The majority of our prisoners-of-war had remained
loyal to the cause. The majority even of those who in their dejection
laid down their arms had no desire to remain under British rule. On an
earlier page I have indicated what the feeling was on the island of
Ceylon, and here I wish to add something which proved to me that in the
Bermudas the feeling against England was still stronger, if possible,
than in Ceylon.
Shortly after I had got possession of the extract of Lord Kitchener's
letter just referred to I read the following description of the
prisoners at Bermuda: "Many of them (the prisoners) are irreconcilable,
and show their bitterness and hostility in every way. For instance, they
have refused to accept for their dead the military honours which are
usually accorded the British soldier. The Boer chaplain, the Rev. J. R.
Albertyn of Wellington in the Cape Colony, requested, on behalf of the
men, that the coffin of a deceased burgher should not be covered with
the Union Jack, and that the three volleys usually fired over the
soldier's grave should be discontinued."[14]
[Footnote 14: Reuter's correspondent at Hamilton, Bermudas, writing on
the 14th September 1901.]
When I read this my heart leaped for joy. Our people were still one and
undivided, I thought. If there were hundreds of our flesh and blood
siding with the British, then there were thousands who did not. Even
those on whom the depressing influence of imprisonment must have had a
baneful effect remained irreconcilable, and showed it in every way.
What also struck me, when reading the newspapers, was how England
damaged her own cause; because, in her excessively overbearing attitude,
she did not understand the art of being conciliatory.
Four colonists, rebels--so one newspaper related--were brought to the
market-place at Cradock. Shortly after their arrival there the
commanding officer rode up, ushered in with the music of _Rule
Britannia_. Thereupon the accusations and the sentences against these
four men were read. It appeared that all of them had been sentenced to
death, but that the sentences of two of them had been commuted to
imprisonment for life. Then a _royal salute_ was fired, and the English
National Anthem played by the band. What an exhibition, I thought, of
England's pride! One would have thought that it was indeed _Rule
Britannia_ throughout South Africa. But so far it had not yet got, and
the action of England there--the exhibition of the sentenced men in the
market-place, the playing of the National Anthem, the firing of a _royal
salute_--all that could have no other effect than to cause race hatred
to strike roots still deeper, not only in the Republics, but throughout
the whole of South Africa, and to drive every irreconcilable man anew to
set his face like a flint against all that is English.
Ten days after Rimington's troops had committed those atrocities in the
hospitals, they and several other columns came to the neighbourhood of
Reitz, and were even more than usually active. They captured large
numbers of cattle, and continued devastating the farms.
Their object was, however, chiefly to capture President Steyn and
General de Wet, and also to regain possession of the guns taken by us at
Groen Kop, which, since the 25th of December, had been conveyed about
from one place to another between Liebenberg's Vlei and Wilge River.
Unfortunately they succeeded in this. The guns were captured at Roode
Kraal, Liebenberg's Vlei, on the 4th of February. At the same time the
English drove General de Wet and a considerable number of burghers
through the line of blockhouses between Kroonstad and Lindley. The
General passed through without firing a shot, but was not so fortunate
when, shortly after, he returned. He then lost several burghers, dead
and wounded.
After that we had rest in the neighbourhood of Reitz until the 21st of
February; but of this I will give an account in a following chapter.
Saturday, the 8th of February 1902, was a sad day for me. Marthinus
Snyman, who had been to Witzieshoek, heard there that my son had died at
Ladysmith. On the following Monday I received a letter from my friend
the Rev. J. J. Ross, who informed me that he had, about the 20th of
January, received a letter from the Rev. Dieterlin containing among
other things the following words: "I saw in the papers that young
Charles Kestell, aged 17, died in Ladysmith; is he not the son of our
friend of Harrismith?" A sword passed through my heart.--But this is not
the place in which I must record personal experiences of this kind.