We trekked with fourteen wagons, seventy women and children, escorted by thirty Boer commandos. Three days after leaving Bethulie, the Tommies found us.

“O, God, ons is nou gevang!” – (“O, God, now we're caught!”)

It was daylight. I hid under a wagon. Magiel and Johann lay on the wagon floor. They couldn't understand what was happening. There was confusion. People screaming. Shouts. “Rooinek vark!” – (“Redneck pig!”)

Women were shooting and killing Tommies. Tant Lettie was a crack-shot. She kept firing till she'd no more bullets.

Several Boers were killed. Then we ran out of ammunition. We surrendered with a white flag on a stick.

I still see the red faces of the Tommies. They wore khaki, brass buttons, and leggings. Their heavy boots thudded as they walked.

They gathered our men together and took their guns and horses.

Before they were led away, our commandant warned us to obey the Tommies or be shot.

My uncle said goodbye. We were all crying.

Magiel looked at me. “Never desert her,” he said to my aunt. “If you've one crust of bread, break it in half and give it to her."

The soldiers weren't cruel. They hadn't tasted real war yet.

While they searched our stuff, my aunt sat on a trommeltjie filled with bottles of Lennon's home remedies. The Tommy's never looked inside the medicine chest.

Tant Lettie had hidden gold sovereigns under the bottles.

After they took our men away, they made us get back into the wagons. We trekked across the veld to a station. We stayed there all night, some lying down, others sitting up in the wagons. In the morning, they pushed us into boxcars.

I couldn't see anything. There were vents on top and one of these slammed onto my aunt's head. When the train moved off, the boxcar shook so much we fell against each other.

We realized we were going to Bloemfontein.

“You'll get food, everything you need in the camp,” the Tommies said.

At Bloemfontein, we were placed in carts. We were taken three miles outside town and dumped down on the veld.

They put up bell-tents for us, one next to the other. Hundreds of round tents, far as the eye could see. We met one of Tant Lettie's sisters and stayed together for a while.

A woman in the tent next to us went into labor. Her baby was born that night. The child contracted some disease and died soon after.

We slept on the bare ground. No bedding, no pillows, only some blankets from the wagon. It rained heavily. In the beginning, we didn't know we had to loosen the tent ropes and let the water run off. We got sopping wet. Tant Lettie and I went outside in the rain. We released the ropes and knocked in the pegs again. It was a quagmire. Exhausted, we lay down in the mud to sleep.

We lit a paraffin lamp in the tent at night. At nine o'clock, all lights had to be out. Women were kicked and beaten if they disobeyed the orders of the Tommies. We obeyed.

We were issued ration cards and stood in line for food. We got meat, sugar, mealie meal, condensed milk. The meat was chilled. Even after cooking, it had chunks of ice in it. We used a paraffin tin outside the tent for a stove, same as a ‘kaffir-koggel ,' with holes in the sides and irons to hold pots. We collected firewood on a kopje next to the camp. Water was brought from a river by cart. Every morning we stood in line to fill our buckets. We were always short of water.

 

If we had grievances, we were taken in front of the camp commandant. Usually, we kept quiet. We didn't want trouble with the Tommies.

During the day, the women visited each other. We walked around the camp. The sun burnt us black. Our shoes wore out. Our clothes were unironed and filthy. Afterwards we got blue soap to wash our things. The toilet was horrible. A big hole with plank seats and sacking around it, you climbed up on top of the planks. No newspaper, no rags.

The camp was lice-infested. I watched Tommies take their leggings off, unwinding them like strips of bandages. They used broken glass to scrape the lice from their legs. My aunt had to cut all my hair off.

There was a church but I don't remember going to it or to a school begun in the camp. Tant Lettie read to us from the Bible.

 

 

Theft was rife. There were fights between women.

Prostitutes carried on with Tommies and Boers in the camp. Most of the men were elderly. One old man called De Wet was a bastard. He wanted to interfere with my aunt. She chased him out of the tent. Tommies also interfered with the women.

I remember a short man with a gray beard. I hated him.

My aunt became friendly with one of the Tommies. She stole someone else's skirt and walked with him.

Thousands of newcomers arrived at Bloemfontein camp. Thousands became sick. The marquee hospital tents were always full. The doctors worked day and night.

We found pieces of blue stone vitriol in the sugar. Lots of people were poisoned.

People died like rats. Carts came down the rows of tents to pick up the dead. There were funerals every day.

We guarded the gold sovereigns day and night. After lights out, we slept next to the box where Tant Lettie had hidden the coins.

Women could apply to the camp commandant for a pass to go into Bloemfontein. Tant Lettie went to buy extra food. This was all that kept us alive.

I think of the thousands who died in the camps. I thank God that we survived.

We were vaccinated on arrival at Kubusie. Our arms swelled up. Magiel and Johann became sick but after a while we were all OK.

We lived in a one-roomed house. A big room with a plank table, plank chairs and three plank beds with straw mattresses.

Our days at Kubusie were happier. Farmers in the district helped the Boers. The camp was small, nothing like Bloemfontein. I don't recall anyone dying at Kubusie.

A Miss O'Brien taught school in the camp. I learnt English from her. After school, she invited me to her room. My dress was in rags. Miss O'Brien cut up her own clothes to make dresses for me. She taught me how to knit and gave me a ball of wool for a pair of socks.