On Commando

23–24 January 1900

Battle of Spion Kop

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At last the cannon from the mountain fired a few shots, but stopped again almost immediately--why, I do not yet know. So we were obliged to lie in our positions. It was terribly hot, and not a cloud in the sky. We suffered horribly from thirst, and scarcely dared move to get at our water-bags. One of our comrades lay groaning behind me. He was shot through both legs. The bullets kept flying over our heads to the kopje behind us, where some of our burghers lay firing at the enemy. Every now and again a bullet exploded in our neighbourhood with the noise of a pistol-shot. I fancy only Dum-Dums make that peculiar noise. We had already seen many such bullets taken from the enemy by our burghers in the Battle of Modderspruit. Another burgher, Mulder, ran past me with a smile on his lips, threw himself behind an ant-hill, immediately rose again with the intention of joining some of our burghers in the front ranks, who sat calmly smoking behind some rocks under a tree, but had not gone two paces when he was shot in the thigh. There he had to lie groaning until our brave Reineke, who was killed later on at Spion Kop, saw a chance of carrying him away.

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We had never in all our lives seen so many flies as at Ladysmith. We had to hurry over our meals as they made eating almost an impossibility to us. Fortunately, I was only a short time there, as towards the end of January, 1900, part of our commando, including my brother and myself, was sent to the Tugela as reinforcement. We had a distance of four and a half hours to ride, and we had to ride hard, as the enemy were determined to force their way through. We arrived the same day, just two days after the enemy had tried to force their way through to the right of Spion Kop and had been defeated. On nearing the high Tugela mountains we heard more and more distinctly the constant rattling of bullets, interrupted by the roar of the cannon and the bom-bom-bom of our saucy bomb-Maxim, that made our hearts expand and those of the enemy shrink. As we raced on to the foot of the mountains, the bullets that the enemy were sending over the mountains to find the Boers raised the dust around us.

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The following morning we went to lie in a trench that had been dug by our men on a rise to the right of Spion Kop. The previous day eight burghers had been wounded there. Red Danie Opperman was Field-Cornet. Not far from us, to our left, stood a few of our cannon, and facing us, to our left, on the long mountain slope, we could see fourteen guns of the enemy's. In front of us was a large wood, and close to that the English camp. We could see the enemy moving in great close square masses. It was a terribly hot day; we had to lie in the trenches, as all day long the enemy fired at us from the smaller positions facing us, at a distance of 15,000 paces; and constantly the bombs burst over our heads. At regular intervals a lyddite bomb--that gave us a shock through our whole body--came from the wood towards the cannon on our left. Once only part of our entrenchment, where, fortunately, no one happened to be, was blown to bits.

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The whole of that day and the two succeeding days there was a constant salvo over our heads. The bullets flew over our heads like finches, and did us no harm, but we had to be on our guard against the sharpshooters, who occasionally fired close to us. That day (January 24), the heroic Battle of Spion Kop took place, where our burghers, after having been surprised in the night by the enemy and driven off the kop, obliged them, after a stubborn fight, to abandon it again. The Pretoria men, who were to have relieved us in the trench, took a great part in that battle. Reineke, Yeppe, Malherbe, De Villiers, and Olivier were killed. Ihrige was severely wounded.