This picture is of the Heidelberg commando and Commandant Hendrik Alberts is in the centre and looking somewhat more military than in the previous slide.

On the 23^rd the crowd followed the commandos as they moved along the right bank of the Cornelis River. By late afternoon they had arrived at the farm Brakfontein to the south of the Witkoppe. De Wet had intended to skirt the Witkoppe to the east and travel north up the valley to Strydplaas but his scouts told him that the British held a strong position at the head of the valley. Unable to delay until the next morning, de Wet resolved to break through the British line at Kalkkloof. Colonel Michael Rimington’s line stretched from Pramkop, which practically overlooked the Wilge River, to Mooifontein where it joined with Colonel Julian Byng. From Vrede southwards the country is rolling grassland and the columns were able to maintain their line with little difficulty. The line swept over the Bothasberg, low hills rather than mountains as their name would seem to imply, but the Kalkkloof provided something more of an obstacle. The right of Byng’s line, the 7^th New Zealand Mounted Rifles, filed down across the valley of the Holspruit and formed their line along the crest of the next high ground to the south on the farm Langverwacht.

To join up with the left of Rimington’s line, Lieutenant-Colonel Cox’s 3^rd New South Wales Mounted Rifles, they had to stretch their line so as to reach up a kloof leading to the farm Mooifontein and Rimington’s line which was north of the Holspruit. At the head of the kloof, Captain A.R.G. Begbie of the Royal Garrison Artillery placed a pom pom gun in a small redoubt of stones that they quickly erected.

The Boer scouts, seeing this kink in the line, needed to investigate exactly where the entrenched picquets ran, and drove a mob of horses along the line. The New Zealanders opened fire and thus revealed their position.

They were entrenched in picquets of six men but inevitably there was a small gap where the line crossed the Holspruit. This stream, like all the rivers and streams in the vicinity, has high banks, something of a barrier to the easy passage of horses and vehicles. The Boer multitude left Brakfontein once it was dark and retraced their steps of that afternoon along the valley of the Cornelis River. The commandos led the way followed by the crowd of carts and spiders and the herds of cattle and horses. They arrived at the Holspruit at midnight. De Wet and Steyn and his mule wagon crossed over at a ford. The commandos skirted the road to the east. The three commandos would have constituted a force of seven hundred men and they were mostly veteran soldiers. They advanced in two groups, one quietly up the bed of the Holspruit.

The New Zealanders had heard the noise of the Boer multitude for some time and were alert. The sentries had heard the “lowing of cattle, the rumbling of wagons and the voices of women” and roused the men who were sleeping after a good meal of roast sheep. The Boers in the donga, the bed of the Holspruit managed to get in behind the line while the rest of the force rushed one of the pickets. Ross and Manie Botha and their men now turned left and advanced along the line of trenches in a half-circle. The New Zealanders were concerned about hitting their own men if they fired along the trench line but soon put up a stout resistance although under fire from all sides. “The fire was something terrific. Bullets! They were just like hail stones falling on cabbage leaves” wrote Trooper Lytton Ditely from the hospital in Harrismith where he was taken after the fight.

Trooper Lytton Ditely was initially reported killed and his name appeared in the list in the Wellington newspaper, The Evening Post on 1^st March. Hopefully his family were quickly apprised of the error.