e my knee was quite cured I returned to Ladysmith. The first thing
that caught my eye on my return to the camp was the balloon above
Ladysmith. It looked just like a large crocodile-eye as it followed all
my movements. When I went to look for my horse or to fetch water or
wood, there it stood, high up in the sky, and I felt as if it kept its
eye specially fixed on me, and as if I might expect a bomb at any
moment.

We had never in all our lives seen so many flies as at Ladysmith. We had
to hurry over our meals as they made eating almost an impossibility to
us. Fortunately, I was only a short time there, as towards the end of
January, 1900, part of our commando, including my brother and myself,
was sent to the Tugela as reinforcement. We had a distance of four and a
half hours to ride, and we had to ride hard, as the enemy were
determined to force their way through. We arrived the same day, just two
days after the enemy had tried to force their way through to the right
of Spion Kop and had been defeated. On nearing the high Tugela mountains
we heard more and more distinctly the constant rattling of bullets,
interrupted by the roar of the cannon and the bom-bom-bom of our saucy
bomb-Maxim, that made our hearts expand and those of the enemy shrink.
As we raced on to the foot of the mountains, the bullets that the enemy
were sending over the mountains to find the Boers raised the dust around
us.

The following morning we went to lie in a trench that had been dug by
our men on a rise to the right of Spion Kop. The previous day eight
burghers had been wounded there. Red Danie Opperman was Field-Cornet.
Not far from us, to our left, stood a few of our cannon, and facing us,
to our left, on the long mountain slope, we could see fourteen guns of
the enemy's. In front of us was a large wood, and close to that the
English camp. We could see the enemy moving in great close square
masses. It was a terribly hot day; we had to lie in the trenches, as all
day long the enemy fired at us from the smaller positions facing us, at
a distance of 15,000 paces; and constantly the bombs burst over our
heads. At regular intervals a lyddite bomb--that gave us a shock through
our whole body--came from the wood towards the cannon on our left. Once
only part of our entrenchment, where, fortunately, no one happened to
be, was blown to bits.

Whenever there was a moment's pause, we lifted our heads above the
trenches to have a look at the lovely la