The Covenant Part 62

The chiefs were ordered to step forward and touch the wand or the stick, indicating the course they wished to follow. Peace was the victor, but at a price: 'Now, to show that you submit to me and my Great White Queen, you will kiss my foot.' They did, whereupon Sir Harry shook their hands and reported: 'We have secured permanent peace.' Alas, only three years later his Xhosa children invaded the frontier yet again, and once more he had to repulse them.

Sir Harry also had his troubles with the Voortrekkers who crossed the Orange River, but the das.h.i.+ng governor and his lovely Spanish wife continued to enjoy such adulation that the people named a series of towns after them: Harrismith; Aliwal, honoring his victory over the Sikhs at that place in India; and two different towns named Ladysmith, one of which Paulus de Groot and his Boers were about to invest.

Late on the second afternoon of the ride toward Ladysmith, a violent thunderstorm broke, making De Groot's drenched burghers curse as they pushed through the torrent. He rode up front with Van Doorn, head pulled in toward chest, a bitter anger darkening his face. 'Every step this horse takes,' he grumbled, 'we're farther away from the route to the sea. d.a.m.nit, Jakob! Even if we do reach Ladysmith in good order, we'll have to wait for the rest to catch up before we can attack.' Then he voiced his real complaint: 'We're missing the battles.'

He was mistaken. Two Boer scouts raced back and cried through the pelting rain, 'Die Engelese! They're fighting our men just beyond those gullies.'

'We join them!' De Groot shouted as he spurred his horse. The commando plunged into the eroded rift in the veld, ponies slipping and sliding in the quagmire, then struggling up the opposite side. They came out on the edge of a vast plain, but the rain cut visibility; through a small telescope De Groot could barely discern a company of Boers, far distant. To his dismay, they seemed to be retreating: 'Where in h.e.l.l are they going? To the Transvaal?' Without waiting for an answer, he headed directly toward the fighting.

The Venloo burghers were thus projected into an experience which would go far in determining General de Groot's future actions. To begin with, their scouting had been inadequate: the two young fellows sent forward miscalculated the capacity of the enemy force, encouraging the Boer contingent to advance too rapidly, ill-prepared for the shock the English were about to deliver. Boer losses had already been heavy and the retreat was general.

De Groot judged that swift movement on his part might halt the rout, but as his men approached, the English commander unleashed a unit which up to now had been held in reserve: four hundred lancers roared onto the plain, sweeping toward the confused Boers. When they spotted the arrival of the Venloo Commando, half the force broke away and came directly at the new target.

The Boers rarely charged an enemy on horseback; they usually dismounted, tied their ponies, and fought on foot. Nor did they like the idea of one white man stabbing at another with bayonets and lances; to them, decent warfare permitted only bullets, with stabbing a savage tactic resorted to by Zulu and Xhosa. But now here came the English cavalry, galloping like fiends across the open s.p.a.ce, their lances flas.h.i.+ng in the sunlight that broke through the clouds.

It was a dreadful affray, those huge horses coming at the Boers, those long, sharp lances jabbing at the disorganized burghers caught unprepared in the open. Van Doorn narrowly escaped when a lance smacked into his saddle, jarring his pony to a deathly stop and tossing him to the ground. Luckily, he made it on foot to some rocks, but watched as a score of his fellow Boers were cut down. Because of the nature of a cavalry charge fifteen, twenty, forty mounted men thundering one behind another along a single pathany Boer who was struck by one lance was apt to be hit by a dozen others, so that a dead body could be riddled.

The Venloo Commando was broken and scattered, which encouraged the Englishmen to launch a second and third charge. On and on they came, yelling and shouting and spewing obscenities; Van Doorn heard one young officer cry, 'What a glorious pig-sticking!' His khaki uniform was splattered with blood; this was a grand battue all over again, a wild and savage slaughter.

Aside from the group of rocks in which Jakob hid, along with five others, there was no cover for any Boers who lost their ponies, so the razor-sharp lances were free to pick them off at will as they ran screaming across the veld. Some of the commando did manage to escape on their ponies, and these closed ranks with De Groot; their rapid fire from the saddle diverted the English cavalry from destroying trapped men like Van Doorn, but nothing could stop the butchery of the Venloo men.

At last the victorious lancers withdrew, having lost only a handful of their men; but when ashen-faced Van Doorn inspected the bloodstained veld he found more than seventy Boers slain, most with more than six deep gashes in their bodies; one young fellow caught in the full path of the first and third charges had been punctured eighteen times. When De Groot saw this ladthe one who had dared to dance with Sybilla, who had kissed Johanna van Doorn in the barnand witnessed the obscene manner in which he had been stabbed, he stood over his young fighter and swore an oath: 'I will destroy the English cavalry.'

He got his first chance during the ensuing battle for Ladysmith. Having learned his lesson, he used the best scouts available: Micah Nxumalo and two other blacks, who reported accurately the movements of the English cavalry. He moved his commando as close to the lancers' position as he could, praying that they would accept the bait he was about to throw before them: 'They'll never catch us in the open again. But let the swine think they can eat us up like they did before.'

Like an old and practiced spider, he spun his web. On five successive days he changed his guard an hour before dusk, instructing his men to walk from their posts slowly, as if weary from the November heat. Replacements were to arrive tardily and to appear listless. Six men or seven were to be visible between the tents, and there was to be desultory movement. Everything was to look like a poorly managed Boer camp, and for five days absolutely nothing happened. So he prolonged the drill, inventing new pieces of activity which would help create the illusion, and on the eleventh day the English cavalry came out again, with nearly two hundred men.

The roles given the forward actors were perilous indeed, for the thundering cavalry was allowed right into the heart of the encampment, with enough Boers running distraught to maintain the illusion, and these must be adroit enough to escape death from the stabbing lances. Two failed, and with great cries of triumph, the cavalrymen hacked them to death.

But when the sortie had pa.s.sed through the camp, it found itself enfiladed not only by the survivors of the Venloo Commando but also by one hundred burghers from the Carolina contingent borrowed for this occasion, and from those grim Boers came a withering crossfire, aimed not at the lancers but at their horses. And as the beasts went down or ran wild in fury, Boer marksmen calmly shot any surviving cavalrymen. Only those who surrendered instantly were spared, and not all of them.

The Englishmen who made it through the fusillade regrouped at the far end of the camp and wanted to speed back to save their grounded comrades, and some daring hors.e.m.e.n tried, but when they were mowed down by concentrated rifle fire, their companions realized that this day's battle was over. In a wide sweep they galloped away from the laager, returning to Ladysmith a sadly depleted force.

There was other bad news for the English. After the fall of Dundee, many thousands of Boer hors.e.m.e.n had been released to join the a.s.sault on Ladysmith, and when the English infantry marched out to give battle, they were sorely thrashed, the Boers capturing more than nine hundred prisoners. This meant that henceforth the troops in the town must stay on the defensive. The English could hold on, but they could not swing over to the attack.

It was a notable victory for the Boers, but at the moment of triumph a fatal weakness manifested itself: the Boer generals began squabbling among themselves. Paulus de Groot, epitome of the daring commando leader, repeated his request to ignore stalemated Ladysmith and gallop south in wide, swinging raids, das.h.i.+ng right into Durban before reinforcements could be landed, but other commandants, who were frightened at the idea of leaving a redoubt in English hands, insisted that brash De Groot stay with them, help them mount a siege, and gradually wear away the English defenders.

'We must strike while we're free!' De Groot pleaded.

'Paulus,' the old commandant-general said, 'if G.o.d extends a finger to us in this great victory, we mustn't grab for His entire hand. He would not like it if you galloped off to Durban.' De Groot was ordered to remain, to dig in, and pa.s.sively watch the English in Ladysmith.

That night he met with his veldkornets. 'I am sorely worried. Commandos were born to move, we should be galloping south.' When no one spoke, tears came to his eyes. 'I can see us roaring into Durban. Taking the port. Throwing the English back into the sea.' Still no one spoke. 'Once we let them land, they'll be like bulldogs. They'll never let go.' The Venloo men knew he was right, but they had their orders and there was nothing they could say, and again tears trickled down his beard. 'We sit here tonight, losing the war.'

Then came exhilarating news which a.s.sured the Boers that victory was still within their grasp: Boers on all the other fronts had won stunning victories, which encouraged De Groot to urge once more a dash to the sea that would end the war. This time permission was granted, but he was forestalled by precisely what he had feared: thousands of English troops had sailed into Durban harbor and were already entraining for the north. This mighty force would quickly lift the siege of Ladysmith and go on to destroy the Boers.

The preponderance of power would rapidly become so overwhelming five, sometimes ten well-armed professional soldiers against one fighting Boer, ten heavy guns to onethat the Anglo-Boer War should have ended well before Christmas. In this opinion all the foreign military experts concurred.

It was the custom in these years for any army in the field to invite uniformed observers from friendly nations to march with it, observe its performance, and report to their own headquarters the quality of this army's fighting men. German officers rode with the Boers, and French and Russian and some South Americans, while the same nations sent other officers to report on the English.

At the end of 1899 these cautious experts concluded that despite initial Boer victories, the English on the Natal front would rather quickly lift the siege of Ladysmith and then, in an orderly fas.h.i.+on, bring in so many troops through Durban that victory was a.s.sured. But in early 1900, after an opportunity to a.s.sess the remarkable general London had dispatched to do the job, they became confused.

Said the German observer in his cable to Berlin: 'With this man the English will be lucky to win in four years.'

But the French major wired in code to Paris: 'He's the type who gives the enemy much trouble, the traditional English bulldog who holds on with every muscle in his body.'

Wrote the Russian: 'If this man is what the English War Office considers a general, I suggest you terminate our proposals for a military treaty with England.'

But the American reported: 'Do not underestimate him. He's the type of general who holds the British Empire together. The Boers will defeat him six times in a row, then realize with dismay that he has won the seventh, and final, battle.'

Sir Redvers Buller, scion of the n.o.ble family that had given King Henry VIII two of his queens, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, was sixty years old, something over two hundred and forty pounds in weight, and chairbound at headquarters for the past eleven years. His appointment as commander-in-chief of the English effort in South Africa had been bitterly opposed by one faction in the War Office and the cabinet, somewhat tepidly supported by another faction that wanted a no-nonsense man in the field. He himself, when he heard of his impending selection, wanted to avoid it, judging himself to be inadequate, for he had never commanded a full army, but in the end he had accepted on the sensible grounds cited by many another man called to a.s.sume major responsibilities: 'I'm as good as any of the others.'

Prior to embarking on his great adventure, he had the bad luck to make an observation which would haunt him: 'I doubt I shall have to do much fighting against the Boers in the field. My only fear is that everything may be ended before I get there.'

But as his s.h.i.+p neared Cape Town, a pa.s.sing vessel moved close, and without stopping, hung out a huge blackboard with alarming news about the confusion on the Natal front, so that when Buller reached Africa he was a much-sobered man, determined to do his bulldog best.

The troops.h.i.+p put into Cape Town about an hour after dusk on 30 October 1899, in a driving rain. Since this was too late for a gala entrance, the pa.s.sengers slept fitfully while those ash.o.r.e prepared to greet the man they relied on to protect them from the rampaging Boers.

Early next morning Cape Town was aflutter with excitement, thousands of citizens having gathered at the docks to greet their hero. Gangways threaded with ribbons led to the s.h.i.+p's deck, where a monstrous cinematograph was being worked by four men in cloth caps: the arrival of the great man would be recorded in motion pictures. Bands played, little girls carried flowers, every government official was present, and a bishop offered prayer.

Precisely at nine in the morning trumpets sounded, drums rolled, and Sir Redvers Buller stepped forth to command the war effort in Africa. He was of medium height, with an enormous belly, and had a strange head which once seen could never be forgotten. It was shaped like an eggplant, heavy and triple-chinned at the bottom, rising almost to a point at the top. His small eyes almost touched at the bridge of a very large nose, which guarded a huge, bushy mustache that smothered his weak upper lip. As if he sought to accentuate the odd shape of his head, he favored a small, tight military hat with a long visor that obscured his vision.

When he spoke, his one conspicuous a.s.set manifested itself: his voice rumbled with deep, masculine authority, but what it said was rarely understood, for a rambunctious horse had kicked out his front teeth. An irreverent Capetowner, startled by Buller's appearance, whispered, 'He looks like a distressed walrus,' but a reserve officer who knew Buller's record for extreme bravery replied, 'Sir, you are wrong. He looks like John Bull.'

General Buller proceeded directly to Government House, where he was briefed on the shocking prospects facing the English forces, for as the local officer explained: 'We are threatened on two fronts. On the west our troops are besieged at Mafeking and the diamond town of Kimberley. On the east they can't break out of Ladysmith. And we hear rumors that the Cape Afrikaners are about to rise in rebellion.'

So instead of occupying a relaxed position in Cape Town and directing his subordinate generals to dash this way and that, subduing the obstreperous Boers, Buller was faced with the awesome necessity of splitting his army into two parts and taking field command of one of them. 'I'll need time to study this,' he said, and forthwith he established his headquarters in a small house on a side street; for his living quarters he chose rooms in the Mount Nelson Hotel, and early one morning a tall, handsome man in a newly purchased uniform of major in the local corps knocked on his door.

To provide Buller with maximum support, Her Majesty's government in Cape Town had scurried about to find some young man with strong business experience to serve as economic liaison, and upon the advice of several older men, Frank Saltwood was chosen.

The men who selected him for this important post advised: 'You must find out as much about Buller as you can. Always helpful to know how a man's mind works.' For the past two weeks Frank had been doing just that, and like the military observers at the front, he was getting conflicting reports.

'Most important,' an English official said, 'he's of n.o.ble lineage. Duke of Norfolk, and all that. True gentleman, but of the rough sort.'

An English military man said, 'Enjoys the absolute confidence of the General Staff. Good Old Buller, they call him. He's welcomed at court, and Queen Victoria rather dotes on him.'

But it was a South African of Dutch-Huguenot descent who contributed the first important bit of information: 'Never forget that against the Zulu in 1879 he won the Victoria Cross. Bravery beyond description. Just set his jaw and walked right through enemy fire to rescue a group of wounded men. A man of extreme bravery. Proved it again in Egypt.'

The encomiums continued, explaining why he had been selected and constructing the portrait of the cla.s.sic English general, and it was not until the third or fourth day that nagging details began to surface. One enlisted English soldier told Saltwood, 'You must remember, for the past eleven years it's been mostly chair duty for that one.'

Another soldier who had seen Buller at the War Office in London contributed: 'He's past sixty, I think, and gotten frightfully fat. Must have weighed eighteen stone when I saw him.'

A major newly arrived said, 'Only hearsay, but I believe the Staff was sharply divided about accepting him. Some wanted younger, harder drivers like Kitchener or Allenby. Others wanted trusted older men like Lord Roberts. There was grave suspicion that Buller might not be up to the challenge.'

'Then why was he chosen?' Saltwood asked, scribbling rapidly to keep up with the flow of words.

'It was the general impression,' the newcomer said, 'that he was a good fellow who deserved a shot at high command.' He coughed, then added, 'He's never led an army, you know.'

'Why would they give such a man so important a job?'

'Well, he had been around a long time and it was his turn.'

A young Englishman who knew considerable about his country's military system, and who was obviously perplexed by the appointment of Buller, said reflectively, 'It just occurred to me. Take all the leading generals a.s.signed to this campaign. Not one has ever led his troops against an enemy that wore shoes.'

This extraordinary statement produced a thoughtful silence, broken by Saltwood, who asked, pen still in hand, 'What do you mean?'

'They've fought barefooted Afghans, and barefooted Egyptians, and barefooted Sindi. "Shoulder-to-shoulder, men, and drive the pagan blighters back to the hills." I know nothing about the Boers, but I believe they wear shoes.'

'They do,' a South African conceded. 'But essentially they're a rabble. Buller should have no trouble with them.'

'But a rabble with shoes,' the young Englishman warned.

It was an older English officer who gave Saltwood the most helpful information: 'I knew him in England, after his days of glory in the field. He had only two objectives. Build the best army possible. Do everything to protect the welfare of the troops. I'm told in recent letters that he wasn't the unanimous choice of either the War Office or the cabinet, but he was a good choice. He had many Boers in his unit when he fought out here against the Zulu. He'll respect them.'

It was with this body of conflicting opinions that Frank Saltwood approached Buller's room that October morning, and before he had been with the general two minutes, he realized that all his research had been useless. Frank's major problem was understanding what the general was saying, for he had trouble p.r.o.nouncing words because of his missing teeth, and those he did say were often lost in his mustache. Frank wondered if he had heard the opening words correctly.

'Glad to have you, young fellow. What I mean . . . hhmmph . . . you're to fetch me an iron tub.'

'Did you say iron tub, sir?'

'What I mean, if I have to go to the front meself. Man must have his bath, what?'

'You mean a tub to carry with you, sir?'

'Yes, d.a.m.nit, what I mean, a man can't go dirty on bivouac, can he?'

He also wanted a mobile kitchen so large that it would require an entire wagon and eight mules. He wanted a feather bed with extra blankets: 'Don't want the cold to impede us, do we, hhmmph?' After a whole morning of this, in which Saltwood jotted down enough items to fill a small store, the general asked abruptly, 'How far to Stellenbosch?'

'The train might get you there and back in a day. But there are no troops, enemy or . . .'

'd.a.m.n. Well, you know, in London and all that.'

Saltwood was quite lost until Buller mumbled, 'Trianon, you know. One of the really good wines of the world. I shall want fifty dozen of their best sparkling wine.'

'That would be six hundred bottles, sir.'

'Six hundred is what I want.'

That would require an extra wagon and eight more horses, but when Frank demurred a second time, Buller raged at him, showing the force which had made him a general to be feared: 'd.a.m.nit, man, this is a campaign, don't you know? Out in the field. Months on end, perhaps. Man wants his comforts.'

Saltwood was to find that this phrase had specific meanings for Buller, because by the close of the second day he had encouraged his staff to fill the empty rooms at the Mount Nelson with the choicest free ladies of Cape Town, and with them on the scene, there was considerable revelry. On the third day Saltwood said, 'Sir, the officers want to consult with you. You're aware, I presume, that the fighting is not going well?'

Saltwood was astonished by what happened next; it was if a magician had waved a military wand, transforming this big, b.u.mbling man into a tough-minded soldier. Buller stiffened, and with the riding crop he kept in his quarters, indicated a top-secret binder: 'I have me orders. Before I left London the wizards planned me entire campaign. Spelled out everything I was to do.' He rapped the folder twice, not arrogantly, but in a gesture of dismissal: 'And every plan they made was wrong. It doesn't apply, not with those d.a.m.ned Boers . . . My word, they can move fast, those Boers.'

'What are you going to do, sir?'

Buller rose, moved about his suite, then stopped and stared out the window at the confusing land he was supposed to conquer. Turning abruptly to face his new a.s.sistant, he said, 'Prepare to spend a long time in the field. I've got to do exactly the opposite of what they order.' He shoved the War Office directives aside. 'I'm splitting me troops. Half to Kimberley to rescue them up there. You and I will be going to Ladysmith.'

He made this bold move to inspire the troops, but as a member of the clique opposed to him said, 'He did inspire the troops, but the wrong ones.' And in London a wag circulated the rumor that the Boer high command had issued an order: 'Anyone who shoots General Buller will be court-martialed. He's our strongest weapon.'

Frank Saltwood, watching closely every move he made, believed at first that the critics and the comics were correct. Redvers Buller was an a.s.s.

The Tugela River is that lovely stream which marked the southern limit of King Shaka's Zululand, and along which Piet Retief's people had waited while he and his men marched to their death at Dingane's Kraal. When these waiting women and children were slaughtered a few days later, their blood ran into the Tugela. Now, at a small hill far upstream, Spion Kop (Lookout Hill), General Redvers Buller was about to conduct a campaign which suggested that the German observer had been correct when he added to his first report: 'When you first meet Buller you instinctively like him. A real soldier. But when you study what he actually does in battle, you shudder.'

The town of Ladysmith was still under siege. Resolute Englishmen, lacking food, medicine, fire power, horses and sleep, protected the town against encircling forces. All England, which received telegrams direct from the town, wanted these brave defenders rescued, so when General Buller joined his ma.s.sive army below the Tugela, he found himself less than fifteen miles from Ladysmith, with overwhelming superiority, twenty-one thousand against forty-five hundred, and he dispatched an unfortunate helio-graphed message to the besieged troops: 'Will rescue you within five days.'

There were two difficulties: he had to cross the river, and once that was done, his men would have to run a gauntlet through a chain of small hills.

As the German observer reported later: 'He might have accomplished either of these tasks if faced alone, but to require him to meet both of them at once posed a problem so complex that he seemed quite unable to grapple with it.'

Buller sat on the south side of the Tugela for five days, pondering the difficulties, finally telling Saltwood, 'A frontal attack would be quite impossible. Never break through there, eh, Frank? We face a long, hard fight.'

'You said in England that it would be over before you got here.'

'Would have been, if the other chaps had done their job. Now we've got to mop up.'

He worked night after night, going over and over his plans, but after he had swilled most of a bottle of Trianon, his eyes, already almost touching at the corners, seemed to come together, at which times he would drift away from battlefield problems and discourse on his theories of parade-ground military combat: 'Keep the shoulders touching, move forward in line, don't fire too soon, and the ruddy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds will never stand up against an English march.'

'With the Boers, it's mostly cavalry, sir,' Saltwood reminded him.

'Don't like the cavalry. Never know where the devils will be going next. Give me foot soldiers every time.'

Sometimes late at night, when he was well under, he would grow sentimental: 'Worst thing ever happened to the English soldier, they put him in this d.a.m.ned olive-drab. Said it made him less a target. I say it killed his spirit. In Egypt you had six hundred gallant lads in bright red, marching in the sun. By gad, it struck terror, that's what it did. It struck terror.'

He never referred to his own bravery, which had been considerable, in all theaters of war, but if someone pressed him about his V.C., he would say, 'There's a job to be done, you press forward. No need to give a man medals. That's his job.'

After all his sound deliberations on the folly of a frontal a.s.sault on a river and a chain of hills, General Buller changed his mind on the eve of battle and elected to do precisely that. 'We'll roll back the Boers and lift the siege of Ladysmith,' he told Saltwood triumphantly, and as if the deed were done, he sent another heliogram a.s.suring the defenders that he would be there within five dayswith plenty of food.

With a shockingly inadequate map of the area and incomplete scouting sorties, he threw his men against the Boers, who stayed north of the river and picked them off in isolated batches. His fifteen-pounders, inspirited by the idea of the daring dash into the face of an enemy, rashly moved far ahead of their supporting infantry and were isolated. Rescue attempts failed and the guns were captured by the enemy, a loss of more than half the army's field artillery. By nightfall one hundred and forty English soldiers were killed, to the Boer's forty, and more than a thousand were wounded or missing. In dismay and confusion, General Buller ordered his first retreat from the Tugela and afterward dispatched one of the more shameful telegrams of military history.

Ordering the heliographer to his tent, he scribbled a message, which Saltwood begged him not to send: 'It will dash the hopes of the Ladysmith defenders, sir.'

'They're soldiers. They've got to know the worst.'

'But let it come upon them slowly, I beg you. Not from their own commander-in-chief.'

'Send the message!' Buller stormed, as if he were driven to prove himself an a.s.s before the entire world, and it was sent, from an addled commander to a very brave man striving to defend a difficult position: It appears that I cannot relieve Ladysmith for another month, and even then, only by means of a protracted siege operation. I need time to fortify myself below the Tugela. When I'm in position I suggest you burn your ciphers, destroy your guns, fire away your ammunition, and make the best terms possible with the Boers.

A commanding general had advised one of his bravest subordinates to surrender while there was still a fighting chance to hold on. Buller himself, after a lengthy effort to pull his troops together, tried to ford the Tugela again and wound up in a second confused retreat. In desperation he told Saltwood, 'There must be a way to cross that river. I'll think of something.'

It was imperative that he do so, for the general commanding the defenses at Ladysmith had refused to surrender, and it was obligatory that Buller try once more to rescue him. Instead, in his report to London he complained that he had been repulsed at the Tugela because the Boers outnumbered him: 'They had eighty thousand in the field against me.' To this, London replied acidly: 'Suggest you check population of total Boer republics, men, women and children.'

The rebuff infuriated Buller: 'd.a.m.nit, Saltwood, back there they don't know these Boers. What I tried to tell them is that we're not fighting an army. We're fighting a nation. Men, women and children.'

With Buller ensnared, General de Groot sought permission to lead his commando on a wide sweep east of Ladysmith and deep into Natal: 'We can chop up the English supply lines.'

Permission was refused, and some of the finest hors.e.m.e.n in the world were held stationary to fight as unneeded foot soldiers. At the two battles of the Tugela they had conducted themselves with dignity, fighting from trenches and behind boulders, but slowly their numbers were eroding. From the original two hundred and sixty-nine, they had lost one hundred, and the waiting so irritated those remaining that more had simply gone home, leaving the commando a mere one hundred and fifty-one. De Groot was aware that unless they soon enjoyed some kind of success, even that number must diminish, and then he would be in serious trouble.

Therefore, when Christmas came, with all Boer troops still inactive, ten more Venloo men growled, 'To h.e.l.l with this,' and returned home to tend their farms. De Groot was now reduced to one hundred and forty-one disconsolate men, but he was enormously encouraged when three young fellows of a different commando reported one day with the simple statement: 'Our fathers fought with you at Majuba. We'd like to join you.' It would be additions like these that would keep De Groot's commando up to strength for the major battles that lay ahead.