Grandad Williamson meets General Allenby

The wet season on the veldt hampered us greatly in this chase after the enemy.  We had to have some transport to carry food, ammunition and blankets, one blanket a man.  The rain would make dried up watercourses raging torrents in no time and even when the rain let up the steep banks of the watercourses were extremely difficult for transport.  When it got stuck the party of infantry with the main body used to heave and tug, collect stones ie rocks and brushwood to get the wagons up the slope.  I was in charge of a party doing this one day and a colonel rode up to me.  Did I know where Colonel Campbell was? (that was our camp commander).  I said “No sir” and saluted.  He looked at me and then he said, “If you see Colonel Campbell tell him I am looking for him.”  I replied “Who are you sir?”  “Colonel Allenby”, he said.  He too was in command of a similar column, that is one battalion of infantry, a regiment of cavalry and a battery of artillery, which was of a similar composition to the one I was in.  I thought what a fine looking officer he was – he proved that later on.

These many small columns never looked like bringing the war to an end.  We advanced at foot marching pace, (the wagon infantry idea had been abandoned), and the enemy retreated at a canter.

Grandad Williamson and train wrecking

Whilst the phase of the small columns was being operated we usually returned to Middelburg to rest and refit and during these rest periods we had some exciting times.  The Boers kept blowing up our supplies on the trains that brought them from Pretoria.  The idea was to put explosive under the rails and let the weight of the engine touch off the explosion and derail the engine.  Then the destructive party would take what they could of the supplies and make tracks.

The most successful train wrecker on our part of the line was an Irishman we called Jack Hinton.  He and his party could and did wreck trains, rob the contents and get away with it.  Our regimental postman was another Irishman, Paddy Boyle by name, and he was bringing our mail on one of the trains Jack wrecked.  Paddy would have had some registered letters for which he had signed.  He had to hand his mailbags over and in doing so he asked Jack to give him a receipt for them.  Jack had a Mauser pistol in his hand, “Yes” he said and aimed the pistol at Paddy

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Eventually we got the answer to this trouble.  The first truck, filled with iron rails, was No. 1 vehicle with the locomotive behind it, and armoured trucks were improvised carrying a number of infantrymen, but it did seem a long time before the answer was forthcoming.  Jack did a lot of damage and kept the Boers in his area supplied; I never heard what happened to him.

Sir Walter Scott endangers Grandad Williamson's life

A few more days march and we reached Middleburg on the railway 50 or 60 miles north east of Pretoria.  Here we rested a week or two and as the Boers continued their resistance in the form of guerrilla warfare, we formed a small column to hunt them down.  We infantrymen were mounted in mule drawn wagons, and with a regiment of cavalry, the 18th Hussars, we set out along with other similar small columns to sweep the north eastern Transvaal.  When the cavalry came up against stronger opposition than they could overcome we dismounted and generally that did the trick.  While we threatened a frontal attack the cavalry would be working round to their rear.  The enemy, mounted on wiry ponies were a very mobile force, and living on the country, whereas the scope of our operations was limited by the supplies we could carry.  Much transport would limit our speed.

On one of our sweeps it was up to our column to destroy the small town of Ermilo.  It did seem a shame, but we did the job by fire.  Most of the houses had a lot of wood in their construction and of course burnt furiously.  The destructive party I was with had the jail and some bungalows to burn.  One of the bungalows had a false roof so I went up to it and found a number of books.  I picked out “Ivanhoe” and “The White Company”,  sat down and became immersed in reading “The White Company” until the smoke coming up through the hatchway reminded me of my job.  My mates, not knowing I was up there had fired the room below.  I yelled and dropping through the hatch they soon had me safe.  I kept those two books until I came home in 1904.  I said it seemed a shame to destroy Ermilo – it turned out to be just that.  Twelve months later the Blockhouse Line from Standerton north-westwards ran through the place.

Grandad Williamson and the Scoundrel

During this march, information was brought in that the Boers were using some farms a few miles off the line of march so a party of us and some Royal Engineers led by an old Major (who was afterwards killed leading a battalion of Lancashire Fusiliers landing at Gallipoli) did a night attack.  Getting near the farms we broke up into three small parties, the Major coming with the party I was in.  Firing broke out on our left as we reached the door of the house we were attacking.  We bashed in the door and stumbling over a saddle and a Mauser rifle we rushed into the living room.  There in bed lay two women with a lump between them.  I flung the bedclothes off and there he was.  He surrendered and got up, then the old Major said to him “Is one of these women your wife?”  “No sir,” replied the man.  “You scoundrel!” said the officer.  We lads grinned.  The Boer, he was a schoolmaster.

I had taken part in several night attacks with that old Major in command and always he was the front man going in and the last man coming out.  He was a stickler for what was right.  The ex-schoolmaster was put under guard and the women packed a few things in their Trek Wagon, got in themselves and we started back to camp.  Their destination – the schoolmaster to a prisoner of war camp, the women to one of the special camps.  We had made about two miles of our return journey when, hearing a bang, we looked back and saw the corrugated iron roofing of their home flying in the air like huge Aasvogels.  I overheard  one of the women say to the other Skellum our engineers had blown up their house -  a penalty for giving comfort to the enemy.

Grandad Williamson and the Bisley shot

To continue, we came round in a big sweep through Piet Retief back to Lydenburg and we had to occupy some high ground and hold it while the transport and main body came through the pass.  A Boer patrol fired on us from long range and our officer in command, a Bisley shot by the way, through his binoculars spotted them, borrowed my rifle, got down and at a range of more than a mile, shifted them.

I was now an unpaid Lance Corporal in command of the section.  The soldiers of section “D” of the Army Reserve, mostly N.C.O.s had joined us.  This made a surplus of N.C.O.s – they drew the pay, I did the work.

When we left the railway we had loaded up rations and ammunition on the wagons drawn chiefly by Trek Oxen and Mules and on these supplies we were dependent for the month the operation had taken, and to get more supplies we must get back to the railway.  So back we went doing the same kind of duties that we did coming out.  I remember one day, we were on flank guard and we came across a lame old donkey.  The old boy looked so wretched that our officer decided to kill him.  He pulled out his pistol and gave the donkey one round which dropped but did not kill him so he fired again, whereupon the old lad got up.  It took seven rounds to finish that animal off.  That demoted the Bisley idea.

Grandad Williamson on the Veldt

The only time I was attacked by a snake in South Africa was at Zandspruit.  I was going along taking very little notice of anything when just a yard in front of me a puff adder was coiled up to strike – which he immediately did.  Being a footballer I was pretty nimble on my feet and I was able to side step him.  Carrying my rifle at the trail I dropped the butt end of it slap in the middle of his back as he landed.  That was his reward.  I spent the whole of the war sleeping by night on the veldt, here tonight gone tomorrow style, but indeed I saw very few snakes the whole time and I never saw a Mamba.

A few days rest at Zandspruit and we were off again.  We left the railway and struck out for Ermilo with the idea of cutting the railway from Pretoria to Portuguese territory thereby stopping all railway communication available to the Boer republics and perhaps capturing old Kruger with his bullion.  The force under Lord Roberts was coming up the railway from Pretoria and had reached a small station called Belfast and we were again doing a flanking movement when we ran up against a fairly strongly held ridge at Bergandahl.  A short artillery preparation and over we stormed and drove the enemy off only to see the last train, said to be Kruger’s, steaming away to Lorenzo Marques and safety.  But that train had a narrow escape due to the bravery of those men who had died at their posts on Bergendahl ridge.

That was the last stand up fight we had.  Most of the fighting after that was a hit and run affair.  From Bergendahl we crossed the railway and entered the Bush Veldt, miles and miles of it.  Then it was Advanced Guard, Flank Guard and the Rear Guard with Night Outpost and a little sniping thrown in all the way to the Lydenburg Gold Fields, and there at the top I was on Outpost Sentry at daybreak when I saw a lion – a lioness and two young ones - come down to a spruit a good distance, perhaps a mile, away: they drank and went away.  I stood there and watched them astonished but I also realised there was no enemy force on my front.

 (You may wonder why a sentry should stand exposed: well we infantrymen spent most of the daylight marching on the Guards I have enumerated above and if we were allowed to sit or lie down we might go to sleep.  When we halted for the night we used, if possible, to throw up some head shelter and behind this the relief sentries slept.)