Here again General Buller's effort was a failure, and he retired south of the Tugela with his whole force.
The following week I went to Harrismith to spend a week with my family, so that I was not on commando when the English broke through at Pieter's Heights and at last relieved Ladysmith. I can therefore say nothing of that, to us, ill-fated battle. I can only say in passing, that the great mistake there seems to have been that General Botha was not in command. When he arrived on the scene at the commencement of the battle, he strongly disapproved of no measures having been taken to prevent the English from taking Klanwane--the wooded ridge to the east of Colenso. "If the English once get on that hill--we have no chance," he said. And what he had said proved true.
The English took the kop and placed their naval guns on it, and they then had the key to Ladysmith. It was then all over with us! From Klanwane they could direct a terrific bombardment on all the Boer positions. And the Boers were overpowered by the overwhelming odds of cannon as well as men.
After besieging Ladysmith for four months, the siege was given up and our forces retired to the north.
The commandos trekked with all speed through the mud--for the weather was rainy: the Transvaalers to the Biggarsberg and the Free Staters to the Drakensberg.
I visited the Harrismith burghers a few days after they had pitched their camp on the great mountain range. What thoughts passed through my heart on thinking how different was our position four months ago when we had descended from those towering mountains into Natal. During the four that had elapsed we had been very successful, except during the last month, when we began to have disaster on disaster. Cronje had surrendered at Paardeberg. Kimberley, Ladysmith, and Mafeking had been relieved; and just after I arrived in the laager, the report came that Lord Roberts had occupied Bloemfontein without firing a shot. Was this the beginning of the end? I asked myself.
Those were dark days! And yet no one was utterly cast down. "Matters will take a turn," so everyone said; and notwithstanding all that had happened, we looked forward hopefully.
And how much help, too, did not the men receive from their wives. Those who obtained leave to go home for a few days, found their wives as courageous as ever. They found, too, that their womenfolk had performed the labour of men on the farms, while they had been in Natal. They had seen that the fields were ploughed by the Kaffirs, and in many cases they had themselves scattered the seed in the furrows; and now the men would commence to reap what the women had sown, to reap so plentifully that man and beast would live for months upon the harvest.