Endless streams and forests

This page shows the current selection from Transvaal Citizen, my work of narrative nonfiction about the Boer War.

The contents of this page and of the blog as a whole are copyright to Jenny Bennett and may not be quoted or used in any form without the permission of the author.

ADVENTURES ON THE KLEIN DRAKENSBERG ESCARPMENT

Beginning in late August 1900, the Boers were on the retreat in the eastern Transvaal.  The British had captured Pretoria (and Johannesburg and Bloemfontein), and after a lopsided battle of several days at Dalmanutha, the Empire’s troops busied themselves chasing contingents of Boers down over the precipitous Klein Drakensberg escarpment toward the border of Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique).  It was a matter of a month or two before the Boers found their way back to the highveld and began the main part of their guerilla campaign, which would last another year and nine months.  A young burgher named Roland Schikkerling had some adventures exploring in the fastnesses of the escarpment and fending off the attack of a leopard.

Schikkerling, with the Johannesburg commando, had followed the same route down the mountain as the Pretorians.  As they passed Waterval-onder one of Schikkerling’s companions liberated a bottle of wine from the village’s only hotel.  They assisted some ladies at the village who were struggling with heavy trunks and portmanteaux as they tried to get ahead of the advancing British army.  The Johannesburgers helped the women onto a railway ganger’s trolley that ran them down the line to Nooitgedacht.  Then the men continued down the road to a garden-like place green with lush vegetation where the mountains rose abruptly on both sides.  A little later another ganger’s trolley glided swiftly past the place they were camped.  Several of their companions had a piano on it, and one of them was playing the “Blue Danube.”  It disappeared down the line, the notes of the waltz slowly fading.

The Johannesburgers continued eastward the next day toward the Portuguese border, passing the English prisoners at Nooitgedacht.  A little later, while returning from a scouting expedition, Schikkerling encountered a batch of the prisoners walking down the road.  They had just been released.  He recognized one of them, a gold-toothed sergeant of the New Zealand Rough Riders whom he had personally taken prisoner two months before.  The man said good-naturedly that he hoped they would meet again in a time of peace.  Another prisoner, an Australian captured near Van der Merwe station in June, recognized Schikkerling as one who had given him a fine meal of tasty ox steak—much better than the tinned bully beef.  Schikkerling had a certain perfectionism.  He made a craft of the ordinary commando duties, and he took his turn at camp cooking with a sense of high moral purpose.  Now he and his companions brewed several kettlefuls of coffee and distributed them to the Tommies as they passed along.

A dozen members of the commando explored up a stream that led back up into the hills.  At times the path was so steep they had to dismount and prop up their horses to keep them from sliding.  After a long climb along a winding track they came to a clear, silent waterfall that slid down a rock wall thick with maidenhair fern.  Schikkerling felt he would be happy to spend the rest of his life in this place, so different from the blackened, war-bruised veld.  They camped for the night and returned to the valley the next day.  In nooks and crannies of the mountains they came across some wild trekboers who had been living in these fastnesses for years.

On another day they explored up to Devil’s Kantoor.  To judge by the accounts, they were there within a few days of when Deneys Reitz and the Pretoria commando reached that point.  Near a chasm they met men from their own commando who had made their way up to the plateau above Waterval-onder.  The khakis who swarmed about up there had chased them to the edge of a precipice, where the fellows had used monkey-rope vines and treetops to slide back down into the forest.  Much of their clothing had been torn off in the descent.  A man named Liepoldt had lost his trousers, but he still carried a tripod Maxim on his back.

At length they reached Hectorspruit.  Countless bags of flour, coffee, and sugar were stacked near the station, awaiting distribution or destruction in accordance with Louis Botha’s orders.  Some of these were being emptied onto the ground merely for the sake of the bags.  There was a great deal of chaos in the area.  A drunk locomotive driver intentionally wrecked a train, and the men had to move the wreckage off the tracks with a span of 36 oxen and another locomotive.  Later all the remaining locomotives were run off dynamited bridges into the river, where they sank with much fizzling water and steam.  At the end 60,000 bags of provisions were burned rather than allowing them to fall into the hands of the British.

General Ben Viljoen told them to make their way as best they could to Pietersburg.  Those who had no more stomach for fighting could go to Delagoa Bay.  Schikkerling’s group of ten had quite a bit of trouble in assembling the supplies necessary for their journey into the Thirstland.  There was a constant stealing and restealing of cattle, horses, wagons, saddles, and boxes of food.  By much devious manuevering of livestock, together with some selective commandeering, the group organized a wagon and a mule train.  They had enormous bags of flour and sugar, boxes of tinned foods and condensed milk, three dozen flannel shirts, assorted hats, and some antique Martini-Henry rifles with ammunition that they could use if their Mauser cartridges ran out.

They first had to ford the Crocodile River. “I, on horseback…had to pilot a led-horse across, and the current kept forcing us on to the team which were in the form of a crescent.  The shouting and screaming was delightful, and kept the crocodiles away.” (RS)  All of their flour and other provisions were submerged, but they discovered that the dampness which penetrated the flour had made a thick crust on the outside which protected the interior.

After finding that the route up by Graskop and Pilgrim’s Rest had been blocked by Buller’s army, they turned back to the low country and entered a vast sterile country.  Their animals became weak.  Many had to be left behind to the lions, hyenas, and wild dogs.  Other parties of Boers followed the same path.  Occasionally they met men lying in wait for them, claiming the best mules or horses had been stolen from them at Hectorspruit.  They successfully fended off these pretenders (if they indeed were pretenders).  They also met groups of Africans who sometimes followed along with them for a while.  At local kraals they were able to exchange salt for corn, fruit, and eggs.  They found just enough water to survive.

One day the group camped beside a narrow river.  Schikkerling left his weapon at the wagon and went to have a wash in the stream.  As he returned to camp he heard the report of a rifle.  Moments later a stranger came running toward him and placed his rifle in Schikkerling’s hands.  The man made an unnerving announcement.  “With my last cartridge I have wounded a huge leopard and he is coming,” the man said.  (RS)  Schikkerling reached into his pockets to see if he had any cartridges himself, but came up only with a pencil and a dessert spoon.  “To ward off a leopard one required, like the man who sups with the Devil, a very long spoon.”  (RS)  Fortunately, with more searching he found two stray cartridges.

The stranger and two of Schikkerling’s companions shouted directions at him from the safety of a high embankment.  Then, about 25 yards away, Schikkerling spotted the leopard crouching behind a thorn tree.  He aimed carefully and shot it behind the right ear.  Their Zulu servant Charley (a popular name for African servants) had come down the embankment, the only one brave enough to do so.  He struck the leopard on the head with a knobkerrie and finished it off.

After six weeks of arduous travel Schikkerling’s group reached Pietersburg on October 30.  Many of the other commandos were trickling in, some having come by easier routes, some by terrible journeys in which men died by fever or thirst or were attacked by lions.  Now all the men were enjoying town life before setting forth on their still somewhat mysterious mission of guerilla warfare.  There was much socializing with the fair maidens of the village, and the discovery of some barrels of half-matured beer added to the festivities.

For some, though, the contrast of town life with previous hardships was too much.  One evening Schikkerling was walking down the main street with Phillipie Fouche of his party.  They passed a restaurant with a large plate glass window.  Behind it, in the soft glow of lamplight,  groups of diners were sitting comfortably, enjoying their food and drink.  Suddenly Fouche picked up a sledge hammer that lay in the street and, before Schikkerling could even react, swung it through the glass, where it fell among the diners with a tremendous crash.

The next phase of the war was about to begin.  Schikkerling wondered what this guerilla warfare would be like.

Such of us, I supposed, as outlived the events of the immediate days, would wander about in vagrant bodies, striking at isolated detachments of the enemy, interrupting communications, being hunted like bushmen, becoming wild and savage, and being forgotten by the world.  The picture I had conjured up, despite its forlorn aspect, had for me a certain fascination. (RS)

RS = Commando Courageous by Roland Schikkerling