With Botha in the Field | Page 3

cause both surprise and great uneasiness. The details of its various

activities over the country are by this time stale history. Leaving
comment of a political nature alone, I confine myself briefly to the
movements which, performed by General Botha and the loyalist troops,
were so swift and accurate in their workings that they broke the back of
the main risings before more than local disorganisation and the least
possible amount of bloodshed had been achieved.
On the 12th of October the Bodyguard for the German South-West
Campaign assembled for field practices, etc., at Pretoria. On the 20th
we heard that we should be leaving at an hour's notice, presumably for
the South-West. The following day wild and disquieting rumours began
to circulate from early morning. Maritz had gone into rebellion.
Motor-cars sped all forenoon between General Botha's house close to
us and the Union Defence Headquarters. Our camp was full of alarms.
The police of Pretoria became suddenly twice as many about the streets.
Towards evening it was positively stated that plots were afoot aiming at
nothing less than the life of General Botha; and the Main Guard, which
had been mounted at the General's house from the day of the
Bodyguard's formation, was doubled. Not a soul was allowed within or
around the modest grounds of the house without challenge at the point
of the bayonet and presentment of the countersign. It will be long
before memory loses the picture of those evenings, when through the
lighted windows of the left wing of the house the Main Guard first and
second reliefs got a view of a familiar ample figure in anxious
consultations at a table upon which the electric light cast a mellow
glow.
The next day, the 22nd of October, rumour gave way to fact. Rebellion
had definitely broken out in the Transvaal and the Free State; Beyers,
the ex-Commandant General, Kemp and others were leading in the
Transvaal; the names of De Wet and Wessel Wessels were coupled
with the Free State. For the second time within a year unhappy South
Africa heard rumours of imminent Martial Law proclamations.
Monday morning, the 26th, arrived and found us still waiting; then the
Bodyguard got twenty minutes' notice and entrained, horses, kits and
everything for Rustenburg. We arrived there at five o'clock the
following morning, and started at once in pursuit of rebel commandos
which were led by Kemp and Beyers. Before starting, General Botha
over a cup of coffee had an anxious consultation with his loyal

commandants who had arrived to meet him. Throughout the day we
trekked, with one brief halt only, and "outspanned" that night near
Oliphant's Nek. During the day the loyal commandos located the rebels
without much difficulty; they were routed in all directions, and some
eighty were captured. At two o'clock in the morning we continued the
trek, stopped in the forenoon on the railway line at Derby (close to
Drakfontein, the scene of the British disaster to Benson's Horse during
the South African War), and pushing on in the evening to Koster, learnt
from incoming scouts that Kemp had escaped capture by minutes only.
The direction of his flight was questionable at the time.
Returning to Pretoria, we remained there for a few days. The whole
town was in a state of remarkable tension. The police were armed.
Armed volunteers were called for. Loyalists were training after
working hours in batches on various open spaces. It was freely
whispered that the German South-West Campaign would be given up,
so formidable was the threatened opposition to it.... I am writing this
much less than a year later: and Windhuk has fallen, the Germans have
surrendered their territory, and thousands of burghers and volunteers
are returning to their homes.
On the 2nd of November we left Pretoria again. More trouble was
brewing at Brits, close to Pretoria. We trekked straightway to Zoutpan's
Drift, the commandos again pursuing a body of rebels who, cutting
through the railway line, had caused damage at De Wilts or Greyling's
Post, twenty miles or so outside the Union capital. Quite unwilling to
make a stand, the insurgents were again put to flight, and General
Botha returned to Pretoria the following day. In the meantime other
loyalist columns in the Transvaal had taken to the field, and the
rebellion seemed well in hand.

SECTION II
DE WET
Compared with the Free State insurrection, the Transvaal affair
appeared in many ways to be a small business from our point of view.
In actuality it was nothing of the kind. It was, if anything, much more
ugly in spirit. The genius of the Free State section of insurgents
displayed itself chiefly in a highly finished exposition of lying, looting
and "legging it."

De Wet's delirious harangue had not exhausted its nine-days' life