The eight burghers soon returned, among them a young man who was nursing a wounded man on the farm.  In the night we went into the veld with a small brother of his, who rode a mule, and returned in the morning to watch the enemy’s movements from the roof of the house.  My horse was so ill with horse-sickness that it shook under me.  The enemy suddenly appeared on the long bult (hill) along which I had come the day before.  I carried my saddle into the house and fled into the veld.  From behind an ant-hill I watched the enemy shooting my poor sick horse.  They passed by me several times, but at last I was discovered, and had to give up my beloved Mauser without a chance of defending myself.  My two companions escaped.  This happened on April 3, 1901.

Fortunately, I fell into the hands of decent khakies who did not insist on examining my old veld-shoes that I was using as a money-box, so I was able to keep my precious four pounds.  They took from me only a few trifles by way of curiosities, and said I was sure to be robbed of them sooner or later by the soldiers in the camp.  I was told that I could congratulate myself that I was made prisoner, as many columns were coming down upon us from all directions, so that we would be obliged to surrender that very day.  I answered that the war had given sufficient proof that their expectations were not always realized.

When the officers of the guard were told that I was taken under arms, a curt order was given to ‘Let him walk.’  When I protested and pointed out that I was a prisoner of war and not a criminal, I was treated with consideration as an ordinary soldier.  I was taken by Babington’s force.

The following day the waggon lager arrived at Tafelkop, and the cavalry that had been sent on to capture our lager joined the camp minus any prisoners.  When the enemy’s lager arrived at Potchefstroom a week later, it brought along seventeen or eighteen ‘hands-uppers,’ one ambulance doctor, several families, and one prisoner of war.  Six of the ‘hands-uppers’ told me that the whole month we were camped at Tafelkop they had hidden from us in their bedrooms so as not to be obliged to break their oath of neutrality.

I came across an old acquaintance of mine in the lager—­Phister, who had served under Commandant Boshoff.  I knew that he had been wounded in the leg at the Battle of Stompies and taken by our men to Rietpan.  On the trek from Ventersdorp to Potchefstroom I discovered him lying on his back in the blazing sun on an open trolley, near to Potchefstroom; he shouted to me that he had had nothing to eat during the whole of the eighteen hours’ trek.

In Potchefstroom our trolley, with the twelve ‘hands-uppers,’ the ambulance doctor, and myself, was sent in the direction of the prison.  People came towards us from all directions.  Some women called out to us:  ‘Why were you so stupid as to let yourselves be caught?’ Others inquired, weeping, after husbands and sons.