Dundee retreat Corporal Padwick

Corporal Padwick’s account of the experiences of No. 4 Troop ” C ” squadron on the 22nd October, 1899 making their own way to Ladysmith after the battle of Dundee.

” On Sunday, the 22nd October, we (that is No. 4 Troop C’ Squadron), under Sergeant Baldry, moved from our camp at Dundee in the direction of Elandslaagte. I don’t think any of us knew where we were going to; the extent of our knowledge was that we were the advance troop of the squadron, and had to reconnoitre towards Glencoe. It was raining heavily as we entered Glencoe Pass, and we halted when we had got about three miles down it. Sergeant Baldry then sent me with two men to keep a look out on the right, with orders to rejoin him as soon as the main body came abreast of my post, i waited about twenty minutes, and saw no signs of connecting files or main body, but I did see what I was sure were parties of Beers on the opposite side of the pass, on the very ground I had seen our left flank scouts on a few minutes before. I was about to send the information to Sergeant Baldry, when the latter came back

up the road, and I rejoined him, and we proceeded up the pass to join touch with the main body. On nearing the summit of the pass we heard guns firing, and soon found our road blocked, and that we were cut off from our squadron. The only course left us was to make back again down the pass in the hope of reaching Elandslaagte and joining up with any of our troops there, who might have stayed behind after the fight of the day before.

“All went well till we reached Wessels Nek where I and two men, who had been sent on with me as advanced scouts, found a Boer fugitive in the police hut and we took him prisoner and I kept his pony with the intention of riding it to save my own horse, which had hardly been unsaddled for three days, but it proved to be so dreadfully done up that I could hardly get it out of a slow walk! I little thought that the slowness of this same pony would eventually land me in Pretoria for over six months us a prisoner of war. I went o” nearly to Elandslaagte, there I could see nothing of our own troops; the red cross flag war dying from some buildings and what appeared to be a burial party was moving on the battlefield. I learnt from a Kaffir that our men had withdrawn to Ladysmith the previous day, and then I withdrew to rejoin my troop. I met Corporal Randall on the way, and he told me that Sergeant Baldry had determined to try and get up the pass again, and that i was to bring the prisoner along. 48 the troop was trotting it war impossible for me and the prisoner on his tired pony to keep up and I soon got left a long way behind. As we neared the centre of the pass, Sergeant Birkett came back to me and said Sergeant Baldry would wait for me at a spruit there was ahead, and L soon came in sight of the troop halted about 1 /12 miles in front. Almost at the same moment I saw a mass of men and what appeared to be guns on the summit of the pass and they very quickly opened fire on our troop beneath them. I waited, fully expecting the troop to retire back towards me, but they turned straight to the west, through the opening I had been posted on earlier in the day, and with great difficulty, as I heard later, reached Ladysmith on the following day. This left me and another man , Private Clegg, with the prisoner alone in the pass. There was only one thing to do, namely, to let the prisoner go and retire again. The Boers were already between me and the troop and in a few minutes would have been in the road behind me if 1 hadn’t galloped pretty sharp. We reached the Elandslaagte Collieries at dark and found the manager there. The latter gave us food and shelter, and we put our horses up for the night. At daybreak we moved off again, intending, if possible, to get to Ladysmith. All went well till we got just past Modder Spruit, where we almost ran into a Beer patrol. We also saw several other parties of Beers across our front. We tried in several places to get through but the Boers seemed to he in front of us everywhere, so at last we gave it up and decided to wait till dark and try and get through Glencoe Pass somehow, hoping, if we were detected, to be able to gallop through in the darkness. We little thought that by this time the Dundee column had left and was then on its way to Ladysmith, and that by going back to Dundee we were going practically into a Boer laager.

” We got within sight of the pass at dusk, and we were passing a Kaffir kraal when two men came out from it. They were dressed in khaki with slouch hats, and had no arms.

They struck me at first as being Natal Carbineers, but on coming up closer to them we found that only one of them could speak English and that they both had Transvaal crests in their hats. We were just drawing our carbines, but before we could do so two shots came from the kraal, but they missed us, though I can’t think why, as the range could not have been more than thirty yards. I saw one of these decoy men later on when I was a prisoner and I asked him hoe he accounted for the bad shooting. He said that one of the men who tried first had been wounded at Elandslaagte in the arm, and so was unsteady and that they were also afraid of hitting their own men who were close to us. However we got clear away, and they did not attempt to follow us. I should think there were ten or twelve of them in the kraal. After we were out of range we came across an old shed, and as it was now dark and raining heavily we decided to rest ourselves and the horses for an hour or two before making our fourth and last attempt to get through. This was the most miserable night I spent during the whole campaign. We had nothing to eat since the morning, and one of us had to hold the horses and look out whilst the other tried to get a little sleep. At last, about 11 pm we started again for the pass; we made a wide detour of tile kraal from which we had been fired upon, and shortly commenced entering the pass. We made the horses walk very slowly, and as the road was muddy we made no noise at all, and except for the moon showing through the clouds occasionally, it was quite dark. We went along very well for about two miles, when we evidently disturbed something a little to our right and although it might have been cattle grazing, we decided to halt where we were till the moon came out, so that we could see among the bushes and make sure. Presently there was enough light to lee a group of ponies grazing, and here and there a saddle with men lying about, evidently all asleep. We decided to move off very slowly as we had come, in the hope of leaving them undisturbed. This we managed to do, and it was a great relief to get away from them without being discovered. The suspense however was dreadful, as we did not know at what moment we might run into another post and perhaps be discovered by them first. Soon afterwards we crossed a spruit in about the middle of the pass and could not avoid making a certain amount of noise doing so, but we got over it alright and moved on, but had not gone more than forty yards before someone shouted in my ear, in Dutch, who goes there. All suspense was now at an end, and there was only one thing to do, so I shouted to private Clegg to gallop, and at our first stride they opened fire. I could hardly say which of us was hit first, for at the same moment that I felt as if someone had smacked my ear, Clegg fell across my horse’s croup, shot through the chest. I could do nothing but go on, as they kept firing up the road. Clegg’s horse followed behind mine, which was lucky, for my horse seemed to be going very lame, and I dismounted a little further on, and found that he had been shot in the near fore, and that I had two scratches, one in the thigh and another in the ear, so I mounted Clegg’s horse and pushed on at a gallop, which was now necessary, as any other piquets in the pass would certainly be on the alert. However, nothing happened till I reached the top of the pass, when I was fired on from the right. I heard afterwards this war from a post with a gun in position. After passing this post I saw nothing till I arrived at the colliery near Dundee, and as it was breaking day, but still dark, I thought I would wait till it was lighter, and then have a look round to see where our troops were. As it gradually got lighter I could see mounted men moving about our camp, and on closer inspection I saw they Boers, and no matter which way I looked it was the same. Above Glencoe Station I could see their Laager. They were coming down the Newcastle mad. They were all over the town of Dundee; in fact they were everywhere. Although no doubt they could see me, they probably took me for one of their own men is the uncertain light, so I turned round with the intention of hiding in the colliery until I could find some way of getting away from them. When about fifty yards from the colliery a party of Boers came from behind it and although I attempted to get away, they, with their fresh ponies, soon overtook me, formed a circle right round me, and so I was taken prisoner. I had always thought that falling into the hands of Boers meant very harsh treatment, and I was very much surprised when they offered me, first of all, a bottle of whisky and then food, which they had evidently lust looted from the town. I was very thankful for the food, having had nothing since the morning, before, and after the fatigue and excitement of that last day and night, appreciated it all the more. Many of these Boers could speak English, and they informed me that our troops had evacuated Dundee, leaving all their guns b0000000ehind, and that it was only a matter of hours before Lucas Meyer overtook them and captured the lot. They took my horse and put me on a little white Basuto pony, and took me to their laager above Glencoe Station. There I was brought before the commandant, a very big dark man in a velvet jacket, who, when I arrived, was at breakfast on the end of a very comfortable wagon. He offered me some of the beef he was eating and some coffee, and as I sat at the end of the wagon a crowd very soon collected round me, and I appeared to be an object of great curiosity to them. As they began to get a nuisance, asking all manner of silly questions, the commandant sent them away and had me taken over to the ambulance to get my wounds dressed. There I learned that Clegg was very seriously wounded, and the doctor said he did not think he would get over it, but Luckily he eventually did. When got back to the laager, which, by the way, looked very much like an old-fashioned country horse fair at home, I found out that there were a good many men who had fought at Elandslaagte attached to it. One man showed me his rifle, which was cut through the wood and partly into the barrel. He said a lancer had made a cut at him with his sword, and he hid saved his life by holding his ride with both hands above

his head. About mid-day I was driven in a Cape cart to Hatting Spruit Station. We passed several laagers on the way, and at each of them we stopped, and I was exhibited for a few minutes. At one they told me that a lot of our men, pointing to the colours in my helmet, had been captured a few days before, and had been sent to Pretoria. When we arrived at Hatting Spruit we found several commandos round the station, and a lot of the Staatz Artillery with their guns, awaiting transport to Ladysmith. They then put me into the pantry of the stationmaster’s house with a sentry on the door, and later in the day another prisoner, a corporal of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, was put in with me. He had been left behind when our troops evacuated Dundee. We were left till about nine o’clock the next morning, when a Boer, who I afterwards Learnt was General Botha, came in to see us, and with him an old gentleman, rather stout, with a long square heard almost white. He was introduced by General Botha as follows:-This in Commandant General Joubert, and he wishes to ask you a few questions, which, as prisoners of war you are not obliged to answer. Then, turning to me, he asked, “Do you know if there is any ammunition buried in Dundee?” I replied “I don’t know.” Again he asked: “There are two wires running from a tent in Dundee camp; do you know if they are connected with a mine?” I replied ” I don’t know, but they might be.” I knew quite well the wires he meant: they were telegraph wires running from the Brigade Office. After these questions General Joubert said: “I am sending you to Pretoria, and as long as you give no trouble you will be treated with respect and no one will interfere with you. After this interview we were marched out to the platform. We had been standing there a few moments, when a train came into the station, and exactly opposite us was a truck with a very large gun on board, which one of our guards informed as was ‘Long Tom.’ On the other trucks there was a searchlight and several other guns. Next to the engine of the train was a closed truck, and into this they put us, and as three-parts of it was full of Long Tom shells, we sat on these whilst they conveyed us back to Glencoe again.

We got out of this train at Glencoe and were put into an old room in the stationmaster’s house. During the day a civilian was put in with us he had been taken as a spy because he was riding through Dundee town on a bicycle. As night came on it got very cold and wet, and we found some old dresses in a cupboard, and with there we covered ourselves up, and had just got to deep when we were awakened by a dreadful noise. We found out it was the stationmaster’s piano, supplemented by captured drums and brass instruments, in the hands of not very competent Boer musicians. The next morning a train wan made up for Pretoria, and we were put into this in a closed cattle truck with two Boer sentries. Our first stop was Newcastle, and an soon us the truck was opened we had a crowd of burghers round it. They

treated us with civility, and were most anxious that we should have the latest news, and, as it was the same thing always between here and Pretoria, I will relate what the latest news was: “Ladysmith had been taken that morning. They had cut off the water supply at Kimberley, and expected it to fall at any moment, whilst Mafeking would succumb to the first attack.” One of our guards, an old man, was present at Majuba in 1881, and as we passed it he pointed it out, and tried to give us his version of the right, but his knowledge of English was so slight that we did not understand him very much. About 6 p.m. we arrived at Volksrust and were now in the Transvaal, a country I did not again quit till the end of the war. As the train went no further that night we were marched to the jail to be housed till morning. Arriving there we were put into a large room, in which there were already two civilian prisoners. One of them, a bank clerk, had been arrested a spy whilst leaving the Transvaal a few days earlier. His bag had been searched at Volksrust, and a photograph of a man in the uniform of the 17th Lancers had been found in it. It was the photograph of a friend of his, but the Boer official said that It was his (the clerk’s) photo, and with this he was arrested on suspicion. The other prisoner was a French Jew; he told me that he had for some time been employed in the Transvaal secret service, but lately he had been employed by the English, and that he had been arrested near the border just before war was declared. He said he had been taken out to be shot two days earlier, but they had brought him back again to the jail. He seemed quite confident that though their had threatened to shoot him they were afraid to do so. I was surprised to read in a Standard and Diggers newspaper, a week or two later, a graphic account of the shooting of this very man. It was the 25th of October when I met, and the paper was dated October 22nd! We were awakened the next morning at 3 am and taken to the station at six o’clock by six men of the Johannesburg police, who were staying in Volksrust on their way down to Ladysmith. We left Volksrust at 6 a.m. and reached Pretoria at about nine at night, having been exhibited on the way to very inquisitive crowds of Boers at all the roadside stations. Then chief questions were the date of General Buller’s arrival and the effects of lyddite shells. The corporal of the Fusiliers gave them a most exaggerated description of the effects of the latter, which seemed to amuse the more enlightened amongst them, bur evidently impressed the majority, judging by the way they translated if to their friends who did not understand English. We were escorted solemnly through the town of Pretoria by a dozen mounted police to the jail, and lodged that night in a room the Reform prisoners were in 1896.”

” Sergeant Baldry’s troop consisted of thirty-one non- commissioned officers and men.

(Signed) H.T. LAMING Major.

” 18th Hussars.”

In forwarding Sergeant Baldry’s name for mention to the commander-in- chief, the Commanding Officer, Major Knox, drew attention to the determination and resource shown by this non-commissioned officer in extricating his troop from a most difficult and perilous position. It is evident the enemy considered they had them securely trapped, and that the hoisting of the white flag was to give them an opportunity to surrender. The timely warning the patrol gave to the approaching train no doubt, too, saved it from derailment and capture.

In view of the signal service rendered by Sergeant Baldry, the Commander-in-Chief conferred the award of the Distinguished Conduct Medal on this non-commissioned officer.