General Piet Cronje At Magersfontein (Cavatina Sequence) Poem by Gert Strydom

I

“Hush citizens, it’s the old general, ”
some young boys say
“Morning men, ” I reply looking at them,
seeing the day
breaking over the hillocks in the east,
still far away
in force the enemy is gathering,
in trenches our citizens are waiting.

It is cold and still dark with lightning falling,
the rain pours down,
our own positions are camouflaged
and overgrown,
on an unexpected wing they do come,
somewhat unknown,
seven times general Wauchope is hit,
as snipers most my men are fighting fit.

Against the railway track I wait with men,
this exact place
is where the enemy break through must come,
and in God’s grace
my small flying commando will crush them
as we do race
forward a hundred paces to start shooting,
bravely not worrying about anything.

II

With that first great British defeat I could
not establish
the number of their dead, or their wounded,
to replenish
our forces would have been the sensible thing,
as to finish
the war once and for all, but commando
after commando then did homeward go.

As a flashpoint with forty thousand troops
Methuen attacks,
after three months of heavy bombardment
I say draw back,
all of my weary citizens do not
great courage lack
but only the brave four thousand of us,
some seventy five thousand cannot crush.

Our situation is very precarious,
many women
and children have joined us from some farms,
most of the men
are without any horses and do walk,
my abdomen
has a wound from an exploding British shell,
constant British bombardments make life hell.