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Thank you for your reply Brianc. My grandparents farm was named "Helpmekaar", which translates as "Help one another", and that was the philosophy of their lives.

Thanks for the ideas Frank. Will do.
Possibly they had heard what happened to deserters from the British army?
Wish I knew more about all this but I was young when the grandparents died, and now my parents have gone too.
I only woke up when I was digitalising their photos and came across the photo of the farm grave....and then I remembered him. I vaguely remember a small man with a smelly pipe.

Thank you for these tips.
I also searched William Barker and was dismayed to find how many of them there were.
It has also occurred to me that he might have been from a colonial regiment as anyone who spoke English would have been a "Tommy" to them.

I have just re-read your post and realised that you said there was a concentration camp on the coast. There was a family legend that my grandmother had been caught taking provisions on horseback to the boer fighters and spent time in a concentration camp. My grandfather must have been one of them. He always said he was a Smuts man.