March 31st 1900
We had not been asleep more than an hour before we were awoken by the report of heavy guns and by the spitting and coughing of shells in the camp – not a very pleasant wakening, I can assure you. We harnessed up under a heavy shell fire, hooked into the guns and stood waiting for an escort. Then we had orders to move off without escort and take up position on a ridge about a mile and a half away. We galloped off at once, followed by Q battery, who were about 4 hundred yards behind us, and we had got about half a mile off our position when we dropped into a nice little trap.
There, about 10 yards from the leading section of guns, was a spruit full of Boers. All at present and in a few minutes, we were all prisoners. The Boers could have killed every man in the battery had they wished, and when one kind, dear old gentleman came and disarmed me, I thought about saying goodbye as I had 12 rounds of dum dums in my pouch. He took 2 rounds out and commenced spitting on them, so I thought it was time to do a move, so I hopped off and mixed up with the rest of the battery.
All at once, there was a rush for cover, as Q battery had opened fire and what with Q battery banging away from one side and the Boers from the other, things were getting a little warm. A few of us didn’t have time to get into the spruit so we just dropped down where we were and laid there about 20 minutes amidst a perfect cannade and rifle fire. It’s about the worst 20 minutes and hottest I have ever spent. It seemed like 20 days waiting there. As soon as they quietened down a little, we nipped into the spruit and had a breathing spell. We stayed there about 3 hours until the fight had finished and the greater part of the column had got away, leaving men and horses wounded all over the place. The Boers marched us away under escort, after they had let us get what we wanted from the convoy. They took us about 12 miles away to a Boer Laager, where we had tea. The Boers treated us very well, and let us do almost anything we liked. After tea we had to hop it again as one of the Biritish columns was trying to cut them off. I was feeling very bad about this time. I had felt a little queer before we left Shabanchu but had taken no notice of it. We marched about four hours and there laid down to rest for two hours. That was the Boers style – march four hours and rest two.
April 1st 1900
Up and off again. I could scarcely walk this morning so I went to one f the Boer officers and he told me to get on one of the wagons, which I did. I rode until 11 o’clock, when we halted again for two hours. When we started again, I tried to walk, but I had only gone about 2 hundred yards when I fell down unconscious and when I came round, I was in a wagon with a cover over me to keep the sun off. I did not see many of the other prisoners after this. Every time the Boers halted, a chum of mine looked after me and gave me boiled water and swiss milk which he ahd got fromm the convoy. It took them four days and three nights to get to Winburg and the Boers left about six of us there and took us into the hospital.
All the rest of the prisoners went up the line to Waternal. I have not much to say about the time I was in hospital. I was at Winburg five weeks and then they moved me to the racecourse hospital Pretoria, as they expected our troops marching into Winburg the next day. But I must say this, the Boers treated me well all the while I was in their hospital.
There is no diary for the dates April 2nd to June 3rd 1900, probably due to ill health or maybe to the fact that there was no access to writing materials.
