by John Wilcox
The one bright spot seemed to be the quietude of de Wet in the Orange Free State – so much so that rumours spread that he had gone mad, was wounded or even dead. Then, he was stung into action by what appeared to be a letter to him from Botha – now himself said to be licking his wounds in the mountains of the far east above Vryheid – suggesting peace overtures again. The campaign that followed culminated in an attack that demonstrated once more that peace was the last thing on de Wet’s mind.
On Christmas Day 1901, a line of blockhouses was being built by the British westward from the town of Harrismith, nestling at the foot of the Drakensberg mountains and near de Wet’s old stamping ground of Reitz. Protecting the work was a battalion of Kent and Sussex Yeomanry manning a hill called Groenkop, near the main road from Bethlehem. British intelligence had reported that there were only about seventy Boers in the vicinity. But de Wet was watching with a commando one thousand strong. Approaching the hill to reconnoitre, the Boer, completely ruthless as always where natives were concerned, shot a black herder near the British lines. Immediately, the garrison fired their guns, so revealing their positions. De Wet took note, crept away and waited until the garrison had settled down to sleep through Christmas Eve. Then, in stockinged feet, the burghers noiselessly climbed the hill, mounting on a side considered by the British to be too steep to warrant the posting of guards.
Many of the guards on duty, unforgivably, were asleep and, with a whoop, the Boers were among them, sweeping down through tents, horse lines and transport, firing and stampeding the animals. Some soldiers, fresh from their bedrolls, attempted resistance, but within the hour three hundred and forty-eight of the Yeomanry were killed or captured. The entire camp was looted, ‘from plum puddings to clothes and ammunition’, as one report later put it. Typically, de Wet killed twenty-five natives but rode off with his captured Tommies, later to set them free, shivering, on the plains below Reitz.
The news could not have been received at a worse time back in Britain. The constant, pinpricking reverses out on the veldt, the news of farm burnings – the plains were referred to as ‘the flaming veldt’ in some of the public prints – the scandalised reception accorded to Emily Hobhouse’s report, the anti-war campaigning of Lloyd George and other Liberal politicians, all increased the pressure on the British government. Lord Kitchener himself, of course, was far from immune. The word was that he was continually locked head-to-head with the newly ennobled but still fiercely anti-Boer Lord Milner, the chief civilian administrator at his headquarters in Pretoria, and it was rumoured that he had offered to resign, only to be dissuaded by the prime minister.
Fonthill himself heard about de Wet’s latest triumph as he led his men in an arid pursuit of the Boer General Piet Viljoen east of Pretoria. Viljoen, who had sprung, it seemed from nowhere, to be a threat of the de Wet-Botha-de la Rey stature the year before, now seemed happy to be in full retreat. Fonthill was leading a column, doubled in size, having been promoted to Brigadier by French, much to his amazement and apprehension, and Alice had remained with him. Tired of being a ‘sweeper up of trifles’ from the commander-in-chief’s table at Pretoria, she had persuaded her editor to let her send a series of colour pieces back about life in the saddle pursuing the elusive commandos. Kitchener, perhaps impressed by her colourful and balanced account of the defence of Fort Itala, had raised no objections, so now Alice Griffith, whose readers of course had no idea that she was married to the intrepid Brigadier Fonthill she described so coolly, stayed with her husband. Predictably, it was not an arrangement that pleased Fonthill but his objections were swept aside by his wife, strongly supported by RSM Jenkins, now a very busy sergeant major with some five hundred men under his eye.
Fonthill took his command on the heels of Viljoen to the foothills of the Drakensberg, where his scouts told him that the Boer had settled in comfortably at Pilgrim’s Rest, high above, showing no inclination to come down to resume the fight. He reported accordingly back to French and it was with relief, then, that he was ordered to bring his column back to the Free State, where Kitchener was beginning his summer campaign against de Wet.
The commander-in-chief, determined to catch this will-o’-the-wisp once and for all, had allocated an additional fifteen thousand men to the project. They were divided into fourteen columns and posted around an area extending for one hundred and seventy-five miles south of the Vaal and a hundred miles east of the Central Railway. Simon’s men took up post at a central point south of the town of Frankfort, where the rest of the army was to converge, having set out a net, moving inexorably towards the point in a series of meticulously planned marches, sweeping the Boers before them for five days, ending on the sixth – but with not a single Boer in sight.
Jenkins sniffed. ‘The buggers ’ave watched us every inch of the way, bach sir,’ he said. ‘They will ’ave ’ad ’eliographs all the way along them ’ills, look you, passing the word on where we are an’ probably where we were plannin’ to go tomorrer.’
Fonthill nodded. ‘You have to be right,’ he said. ‘They must have slipped between the columns at dead of night. Typical de Wet!’
And so it went on, in the Cape and all over the vast battlefield of the two Boer republics, with the individual Boer commandos sidestepping the ponderous British columns and striking swiftly, perilously maintaining their positions out in the field by feeding off their enemy’s supplies. Truly, the veldt was now aflame.
Yet it was not all one-way traffic. Kitchener’s long-term strategy of building blockhouses across the plains, linked with barbed wire, and then driving the marauding Boers before the British columns to corral them into the corners, forcing them to fight against overwhelming odds or to surrender, was very slowly beginning to pay off. It was true that the strategy was immensely expensive in terms of time, effort and manpower and it was not foolproof. Inevitably gaps opened up between the ‘beaters’ on the drive, and the Boers often slipped through at night. But what Kitchener called ‘the bags’ of prisoners taken gradually began to improve.
Fonthill and his enlarged column was involved in these drives and he and his men found them irksome, almost as bad as their farm-burning duties in the previous year. The military integrity of Fonthill’s Horse, its raison d’être – to operate independently with slim resources, moving quickly and often at night to flush the commandos from their hiding places – was completely compromised by the need to move at the slow pace of the large forces herding the guerrillas before them.
‘Blimey,’ observed Jenkins to Fonthill. ‘We might as well be bleedin’ infantry. We’re wasted, ploddin’ on like this.’
De Wet himself, once again, was nearly caught in these pincer movements. Hampered now by a large body of civilian refugees – for Kitchener had closed the concentration camps to further entries of women and children – plus thousands of cattle and horses, the Boer leader was driven before Kitchener’s cordon of sixty thousand men who were closing in, implacably, all around him.
Eventually, de Wet and his unwelcome huge crowd of hangers-on, a total of some three thousand in all, were seemingly cornered in a remote valley, twenty miles south of Vrede, called Langeveld, Afrikaans for ‘long expectation’. It was a lush, beautiful spot, a shallow basin, surrounded by flat hills and with a little stream, the Hotspruit, running along the bottom. The general would dearly liked to have stayed here for a while to allow the cattle to graze and his people to rest. But the British were all around him and he pushed on through the night, following the course of the stream along the valley bottom and lit by a mellow, full moon. His scouts had told him that a low cleft in the hills ahead to the south offered him an escape from the basin and he decided to lead his unwieldy caravanserai up the slope to take it.
Fonthill and his men were in the van of the British forces chasing the Boers and he, Jenkins and Alice were beginning the gentle descent into the valley when they saw, far away at its head, the Boer column begin to wind its way up the side of the hill to reach the exit.
; ‘Now we have him, at last!’ cried Simon. ‘The New Zealanders and Australians are dug in up there and he’s caught in a trap.’
As he spoke, flashes of gunfire lit up the darkness ahead and it was just possible to see the burghers leading the column turn round and retreat down the hill. They met, however, the refugees at the bottom with their wagons and cattle and for minutes all was confusion as the wagons jammed, the oxen and cows impeded the fighting men and the refugees cried out in consternation.
Fonthill turned to his officers. ‘Deploy your squadrons across the mouth of the valley,’ he shouted. ‘They might turn around and try and fight their way out this way. Quickly now.’
Alice looked up from her scribbling. ‘Simon,’ she cried, ‘be careful of the women and children if they try and force their way through here. Surely better to let them through than cause civilian casualties.’
But neither of them needed to worry. As they watched, the tiny figures of the burghers at the head of the column suddenly broke away from the refugees and other fighting men behind them and surged up the hill towards the New Zealand and Australian lines. The noise of gunfire could clearly be heard above the lowing of the cattle and the shouts of the refugees and it was obvious that a fierce gunfight was in progress in the hill cleft. Fonthill stood in his stirrups and focused his field glasses.
‘By God!’ he cried. ‘He’s broken through. I can see them streaming over the pass and disappearing. The bloody man’s got away again.’
Indeed he had. De Wet had stormed through the Antipodean lines with six hundred burghers, President Steyn and his officials once again in their midst, and leaving behind all of the refugees, their wagons and their cattle and a minority of his fighting men. These were all captured by Fonthill and the other troops coming up fast behind him. In all, some eight hundred captives were taken – included de Wet’s son – the biggest success of the guerrilla war to date. But, of course, the ruthless, ever-resourceful de Wet himself had slipped away again.
Yet could this game of hide-and-seek, of pursuit and pursued, attack and retreat continue for very much longer? Fonthill himself now sensed that, despite the defiance of de Wet, the most antagonistic of the Boer generals, there was a sense of exhaustion on both sides. Rumours were spreading that Botha once again was anxious to persuade his fellow guerrilla leaders to agree to negotiate for peace and the news that that great imperialist, Cecil Rhodes, had died seemed to indicate that an era was closing in South Africa.
The war, however, continued on its weary way. Even the confirmation that the Boer leaders were, in fact, gathering at Klerksdorp, under British safe passage, to begin the hugely difficult task of gaining agreement among themselves to sue for peace, did not end the fighting. And de Wet was not the only Boer commander eager to continue the hostilities.
Lieutenant General French had long been stationed in the Cape Colony attempting to pin down Smuts and the other scattered bands of guerrillas, and Fonthill received orders that he was to move his column to Lichtenburg, some sixty miles east of Mafeking in the Northern Transvaal, and report to General Ian Hamilton, whom Kitchener had appointed to coordinate a great effort to put down de la Rey. The two were both survivors of the Battle of Majuba Hill two decades before and knew each other slightly. On Fonthill’s arrival they shook hands warmly.
‘I’m no peace-at-any-price merchant,’ said Simon, ‘but should we still be fighting on, General, when the Boers are meeting under our auspices to discuss a possible armistice?’
A tall, thin, elegant man, Hamilton had earned laurels for his part in the defence of Ladysmith and Kitchener had promoted him from a desk job to bring de la Rey finally to heel. He now nodded his head firmly. ‘Oh, yes. De la Rey is at this meeting at Klerksdorp but his deputy, Kemp, is a firebrand and we hear he is about to go very much on the warpath. There are about five thousand seasoned burghers hereabouts still wanting to fight. If they give us a knock now, it will give heart to the delegates in Klerksdorp who want to fight on and they could carry the day. If – as will happen – we give them a bloody nose, then that could seriously accelerate the peace talks.’
‘Quite. What exactly is your plan, then, and what do you want my chaps to do?’
‘I’ve got four groups about thirty-five miles south of Lichtenburg and I intend to start them on a great sweep through about a hundred and forty miles miles. First south-west, then south and finally south-east to the Vaal and Klerksdorp itself. That should give the Boers at the meeting a sharp reminder that we are very much still in the field. I want you to be in the van and find Kemp and lure him into us.’
‘Have you any idea where he is?’
‘Round about here.’ He jabbed a long, beautifully manicured forefinger onto the map on his table. ‘Near a tiny place called Boschbult, some sixty miles west of Klerksorp. He had a go at one of our reconnaissance columns there the other day. We think he’s still thereabouts. Get down there, Fonthill, and stand on his coat tails.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Alice, suffering from a miserable cold, was left behind in Lichtenburg and, on the night of the 9th April 1902, Fonthill and his column were ranging along the banks of the River Brakspruit within about twelve miles of its junction with the Great Harts River. Simon knew that this was de la Rey’s – and therefore Kemp’s – territory. He and his men were riding, spread out in a screen, ahead of where the van of Hamilton’s main force, under General Kekewich, were marching behind him, when one of Mzingeli’s men galloped in.
‘Many Boers ahead, baas,’ he reported.
‘How many?’ demanded Fonthill. ‘Is it a full commando?’
‘Many, many, baas.’
Simon turned and summoned one of his subalterns. ‘Ride back and find General Kekewich. He should be directly in our rear. Tell him we have found the main commando. Tell him I shall try and lure it in towards the farm ahead – what the hell is it called? – ah yes, Rooiwal. It’s half a mile to the north. He should be prepared to meet the Boers there. Gallop now.’
Fonthill thought quickly. He did not wish to imperil his whole column which, although enlarged, would be no match for a full Boer commando in open ground. Yet he wanted to lure Kemp to attack. He called up Major Forbes and explained the situation.
‘Let me have a troop of about forty men. Then take the column up ahead to the farm we scouted yesterday, Rooiwal, where General Kekewich should be concentrated. Sergeant Major Jenkins and I with the troop will try and draw the Boers into attack onto Kekewich’s columns. Explain this to the general and merge our column with his force. Understood?’
Forbes’s lined face seamed into a frown. ‘Understood. But it sounds bloody dangerous to me, sir. Be careful. Let me ride with you and send Cartwright back.’
‘No.’ Fonthill grinned. ‘I’m much fatter than you and will make better bait. Off you go.’ The two shook hands and Forbes wheeled his horse round. Simon shouted: ‘Jenkins, here please.’ And then, ‘Mzingeli. Go back with the column. Where’s your tracker?’
The two men, white and black, joined him and then the three rode forward to meet the forty troopers singled out by Forbes. Then they sat their horses as the column turned and cantered away, watching until it had disappeared into the distance.
‘Right,’ said Fonthill. ‘Gentlemen, we trot forward. I believe that there is a large Boer force about half a mile or so ahead of us. Our tracker will show us where. When we see them, we will dismount and fire on them and then, when they attack, as I hope they will, we will remount and lure them onto the main British force to our rear. Now, good luck. In column of fours, to the front, trot.’
Jenkins pulled alongside Fonthill and the two rode in silence for a few minutes at the head of the little column and behind the tracker who cantered on some twenty paces ahead, continually rising in his stirrups nervously to look around him.
The Welshman leant across and extended his hand. ‘I have a feelin’, bach sir,’ he said, ‘that we won’t be doin’ much more of this sort of barmy stuff in t
he future, if at all. So p’raps, look you, we should just shake ’ands, like, an’ remember all the times we’ve done it before.’
Simon took the hand of his old comrade and, for a brief moment, the two rode together, hands clenched, in silence. Then Fonthill nodded. ‘Thank you for those times, 352. Stay close now.’
‘Where else would I be, now?’
They had ridden for perhaps fifteen minutes when the scout suddenly halted and raised his hand. Fonthill and Jenkins cantered to his side. They found themselves looking down from a gentle rise on a quite amazing sight. Before them, some three hundred yards away, a vast gathering of horsemen, perhaps some seventeen hundred, were riding towards them in close order, a phalanx of bandoliered Boers, slouch-hatted, their ragged clothing clearly visible, stretching away far on either side of the little troop. Two men rode ahead of the commando, one wearing a bright-blue shirt. On seeing the soldiers before them, the two turned in their saddles, gestured up the hill with their rifles to their followers and kicked their mounts into a gallop.
Fonthill’s first thought was the fervent hope that Kekewich had had time to deploy behind him. His second was that there was no time to dismount and fire.
‘Do not, repeat DO NOT dismount!’ He shouted. ‘Fire one volley from the saddle at the enemy ahead. Wait for the order. Steady the horses. Now. Select your target. Aim. FIRE! To the rear, gallop!’
The forty men, their rifles still in their hands, turned and spurred their horses into the gallop. They had a good start on the Boers, of course, and the advantage of being on top of the slope. Fonthill also fervently hoped, as he rode, Jenkins at his side, that the British ponies would be in better condition than those of the Boers, who had been starved of good grazing until recently by the rains. Then he was aware that bullets were whistling around him.
