We’ll kick off where we left off last week – where Jan Smuts’ commando was near Calvinia in the northern Cape evading the English. But its also where commandant Bouwer was surprised by a mounted infantry unit of the British – killing or wounding 17 men who were mainly skewered by swords as they slept.
Remember I explained how the colonial Lem Colyn had ingratiated himself with Bouwer’s commando, lying that he had been sentenced for treason and escaped. Deneys Reitz, who’s memoir I’ve used throughout this series, called him Lemuel Colyn, but his real name was Lambert Colyn. And he wasn’t English speaking, but a Cape Afrikander and the fact he was an Afrikander doomed him as we’ll see.
Colyn was a British spy and playing a dangerous game. Remember he arrived at Bouwer’s unit claiming he’d escaped from a Clanwilliam prison where he was charged with treason by the British. That was a lie, he was being paid by the British.
After he learned enough about the commando’s daily life, Colyn disappeared one day only to return with the British mounted infantry – leading them towards the men sleeping under the trees at Van Rijnsdorp at dawn in mid-February 1902.
This incensed the Boers who swore revenge on him and his Nemesis would be Jan Smuts.
After Commandant Bouwer’s force had been surprised, he was smarting from the setback. Not only had he lost good men, but the British were now following up their attack by advancing in force with the clear object to retake the town of van Rijnsdorp from the Boers.
Smuts had moved further westwards towards the Atlantic Ocean, which was now only 25 miles from his camp on the Olifants river so he decided it was time for a bit of unusual Rest and Recuperation.
Smuts called for Boers who had not set sight on the ocean to meet him.
About 70 Boer burghers arrived from this part of the northern Cape within two days.
First Smuts and his posse passed the famous Ebenezer Mission Station, and then towards afternoon, they glimpsed something remarkable. The glint of the sea through a gap in the dunes.
This curious commando of beach goes topped the last dunes, and stopped their horses to stare in wonder. Of course, that was only for a second.
In a moment they turned back into children, soon they were throwing their clothes off and that’s when Reitz and a handful of the others who had experience of the sea began to save their colleagues from their own zeal.