53. Colonel Beauchamp Duff and Generals Schalk Burger and Daniel Erasmus

It was now towards three in the morning, and Malherbe’s men had nearly exhausted their ammunition. They sat quietly watching the tail of the column vanish into the darkness beyond, on its way to Ladysmith. When daylight came at last, a grim scene met their eyes. Said Reitz: “Before us, within a radius of less than twenty-five yards, lay over sixty dead and wounded English soldiers, and as we walked forward among them we came upon the bodies of three of our men who had not been with us originally. Two were dead and dreadfully hacked with bayonets and the third was at his last gasp.”

61. Major Philip Erasmus and General Schalk Burger

There was constant talk in the Boer laagers of suspected treachery. While General Schalk Burger blamed the loss of the gun on “the lack of vigilance on the part of men and officers”, General Daniel Erasmus sent a telegram to President Kruger: “I can come to no other conclusion that black treason is rampant among us.” Apparently this accusation was made to justify the arrest of Tossel. It seems to have become something of a witch hunt and anyone with an English name could have become a suspect. Erasmus arrested several others and sent them to Pretoria,
their names being Cooper, McArthur, Walker and Miller. The French Colonel de Villebois Marieul, visiting the Boer army, and now suffering from dysentery, was tucked up in bed in the German hospital at Modderspruit. He was very well treated in the hospital but ruefully noted in his diary: “The English have knocked out another cannon. The Boers are definitely not at their best.”