Two Years on Trek: Being Some Account of the Royal Sussex Regiment in South AfricaDu Moulin, Louis Eugène
History
Two Years on Trek: Being Some Account of the Royal Sussex Regiment in South Africa
Du Moulin, Louis Eugène
Great Britain. Army. Royal Sussex Regiment; South African War, 1899-1902 -- Regimental histories -- Great Britain
At daybreak, five o'clock the next morning, we continued our journey,
passing on the veldt our wagons trekking along. We stopped an hour at
Brandfort to cook our breakfast, after which we went on, passing Glen,
our original starting place several months before, and reaching
Bloemfontein about the middle of the day.
Having wired to say we were coming, we were expected, and the A.D.R. and
the R.S.O., and various other officials with half-a-dozen letters after
their names, were waiting for us, and, best of all, had provided wagons;
so there was no delay in loading up our baggage, ammunition and rations,
as there had been on the first visit to Bloemfontein of our battalion.
Now, we thought, at last we shall have a few days' peace in the
comfortable tents of the Rest Camp, and we all made plans how we were to
spend our days; many of the men were allowed passes that very afternoon
to go into the town, and it was as well they went when they had the
chance, as that night we were off again!
At half-past seven that evening, I received orders for our half
battalion, the battery and the hospital wagons to move as soon as
possible to the Waterworks, about 22 miles. Nothing was said about
transport, so I had to race off and find General Kelly-Kenny, who told
me to apply to Colonel Long (at the other end of the town) for wagons.
The General also said that it was possible the Waterworks might be
attacked at dawn, and our assistance might be required, so that the
sooner we got there the better. The men of the Camerons were to go with
us, but not the details of the Derbyshire, who were to remain.
After seeing Colonel Long and being passed on by him to the Divisional
Transport officer, I managed to get authority to procure wagons from the
Rest Camp; so I went off there, and asked for all they could spare and a
water cart, which, after some demur as to the number of wagons, they
promised to send up. About half-past ten these arrived at the Rest Camp
where we were quartered, and after loading up we started; luckily, there
were plenty of wagons, so we were able to relieve the men of the
blankets they carried on their backs, and also to load the wagons
lightly--the mules had a long march before them and had already done a
full day's work.
There was a good moon, so we trekked along steadily until three o'clock
in the morning; when the moon disappeared, and we halted where we were,
posted pickets and got out our blankets, and had a couple of hours'
sleep. Up again at dawn, we loaded our wagons with the blankets and
moved off by half-past five; we reached a suitable spot near Bushman's
Kop about eight o'clock, when we halted a couple of hours for breakfast,
but were off again by ten o'clock, eventually reaching the Waterworks,
in very good style, after a long tramp of 22 miles, at half-past one in
the afternoon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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