In the spring of 1901, he is said to have joined the commando of Commandant Gideon Scheepers.   With them Toy galloped across the Karoo plains and through small villages until he was captured on the farm Onbedacht on July 12, 1901. Toy was charged with treason and attempted murder at Graaff Reinet on August 5, 1901.  It was claimed he shot at a British officer after he had surrendered.  Toy denied the charges, but was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.  This was changed and he was executed by a firing squad on September 4.

This story, which appeared in Rose’s Round-up, caught the attention of  Bertil Haggman, of Helsingborg,  Sweden, is trying to trace  Toy’s time in the Karoo.  “this is a particularly interesting story because Toy is not a Swedish name,” he said.  “It is Anglo-Saxon in origin.”

“Toy is reported to have spoken English quite well at his trial, so Bertil surmises his parents were part of the huge English and Scottish populations of Gothenburg at the time.  This city had extensive links across the North Sea with Britain at the time. The death report gives his name incorrectly as Frederick Toe.  It states that both his age and religion are unknown and gives the cause of death as cardiac failure.  I find this extremely odd because  we know he was executed.  I would love to know more of  about him and his time in South Africa,” says Bertil.

a typical Murraysburg cottage similar to the one in which the doctor lived

Boer Commando units loved the Murraysburg branch of the Standard Bank. It  was in a far-flung isolated spot and easy to attack, so, for a while during the Anglo-Boer War,  it became most robbed instution of its kind in the Karoo. The first “hit” happened in January, 1901,and the bank had to be closed for a few days. In his diary bank manager, F C Lilford, reported that during March, 1901, the town was attacked three times in 20 days and each time the commando made a bee line for the bank.

 During that month he was captured by the Boers while posting  official letters at Biesiespoort and held captive for over eight hours.  It was a traumatic experience.  Then, under cover of darkness on the night of  June 13, 1901, about 60 men from Commandant Gideon Scheepers’s commando appeared at Lilford’s home and  demanded the keys to the bank’s safe. At first he bravely refused, but in the end after being badly threatened and assaulted, he was forced to hand them over. The Boers rushed straight to the bank where they took £120/7/9d. But, they were honest men, they left a receipt. 

 Shortly after this incident Lieutennant Pijper, who was Scheepers’s second in command, went to see Lilford and apologised for the bad behaviour of his men.  Scheepers also personally apologised for this incident when he arrived in the town.  According to the book  ‘n Baanbrekerbank in ‘n Baanbrekerland,  (A Pioneer bank in a Pioneer Land)  the asssets from   Murraysburg  bank were  transferred to Beaufort-Wes after this incident and the branch was closed down for the further duration of the war.

Some soldiers, however, were “totally horrified at chargers who reared up and fell over backwards.”  One reported seeing a horse rear right over with an ‘inebriated’ settler on his back.  “The settler never quitted the saddle, and when the horse struggled to his feet again, actually came up, still in the saddle, smiling affably and without a scratch.”

A “bolter” once charged a wall, with an officer on his back.  He “gave me a tremendous purl and grazed off half of my moustache which was in a most promising state,” lamented T J Lucas in Camp Life and Sport in S A. Lucas added: “a major problem is finding a horse that can be trusted to remain where you’d left him for any length of time.  I know of nothing more aggravating than a tricky brute, who waits quietly until you come up to him.  Then, just as you reach out to catch hold of the reins to remount, sends both heels flying at your head, and trots off gently, repeating the manoeuvre every time you approach. Such an animal could lead you well into this desert land, leaving you miles away from anyone who could help.”

In the valley lies Beafort West- the place Olive did not like

Olive Schreiner, author, liberal free-thinker, champion of the under-privileged and women’s rights,  loved the Karoo, but she didn’t like Beaufort West. Olive stayed Beaufort West for a while during the Anglo-Boer War – towards the end of June, 1900. She hated the town and its people and didn’t hesitate to say so. In a letter, which appears in Karel Schoeman’s book Olive Schreiner and the Boer War, she write: “It’s so much worse here than in Cape Town, simply because the place is so small.  The Dutch don’t want or trust me and the English simply insult one. You don’t know how horrid the jingoes are here.”  Then later she wrote: “Beaufort West is dusty and dirty.”  Schoeman says a considerable military presence in the town at the time may have influenced her. He continues: “She  looked on Beaufort West as a temporary place of sojourn, while she waited for her husband to return from England. In a letter to Alice Greene, Olive stated: “I know Miss Molteno doesn’t like Beaufort, nor do I, but I don’t know where else to go.” At the time she was staying at the boarding house of Mrs Kriel, a sister of the Boer scout, Danie Theron.  “Personal considerations aside,” says Schoeman,  “Beaufort West should  have been the most suitable place for Olive, not just because of its climate (she was an asthma sufferer), but also because it was the only large settlement in the Karoo linked directly to Cape Town by rail.”  In 1900, the town’s white population numbered about 1500.  Contemporary photographs depict an attractive place with tree-lined streets. The town had many Boer sympathisers, including  the local Dutch Reformed Church minister, Ds Petrus van der Merwe. The Review newspaper referred to Beaufort West as filled with  “ incendiary sentiments” and as “a conspicuous  lump of indigestible Boer Republicanism.”

Trooper Burton's grave restored

Trooper P Burton (No. 4249) died of wounds received during a skirmish at Grootfontein, near Laingsburg on October 11, 1901.   He was only 24 years old.    He was buried in the Laingsburg cemetery and his comrades collected sufficient funds to erect a marble memorial to mark his grave.    Then in at about 08h00 on Sunday, January, 25, 1981, a tremendous flood hit the town and washed away, people, houses and many of the gravestones in the cemetery.  Among the memorials that were washed away was the stone on Trooper Burton’s grave.

Then, in April, 1994, after more heavy rains, Laingsburgers made an incredible find.  Pieces of a badly broken grave stone washed up n the riverbank near the golf course.   This was the stone from Trooper Burton’s grave.  Miraculously almost all pieces were found.  It was pieced together and returned to his grave – this time it was laid down flat and embedded in concrete.

Soon after the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War,  Tremearne volunteered as a driver and in July, 1900, was attached to a battery of the CIV. He also served in columns under generals Paget and Plumer.   Tremearne returned to England in November, 1900, and the following year was presented with a medal and three clasps by the King. Then, in November, 1901, he received a commission in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and joined it in the Karoo.  As 2nd Lieutenant of the 5th Battalion he served in Sutherland and Beaufort West. He later moved to Carnarvon where he died of enteric fever on April 14, 1902. Tremearne was born in India in 1879.

A farm in The Gang near to where Johannes Klue was shot

During the Anglo-Boer War a young man decided to take leave of his commando and visit his parents in Aberdeen. Johannes Klue, however, never made it home. On February 2, 1902, he took a shortcut through Wolwekloof, on the farm Remhoogte, in an area known as “Die Gang”, a long narrow valley which links Prince Albert to Klaarstroom.   Klue surprised a wounded British Soldier there and was shot in the chest.   The owner of Remhoogte, Roelof du Plessis,  heard the shot and rode out to investigate.   He found only the heavily wounded Klue, so he carefully loaded him onto the back of a horse and took him home for attention.   Sadly, despite care and attention at Du Plessis’s home, there was little that could be done for the young man and he died.  Roelof decided to bury him back in the kloof where he was shot, however, once he got there he found the body of the British officer, who by then had also died of his wounds.   So they dug two graves and buried the men, who had been enemies in life, side by side.

The officer was Lance Corporal J Boyd, of the Imperial Yeomanry.   He and his men had been in the area in January, but things were so quiet that they had been ordered to move to Calitzdorp.  Shortly afterwards  the Boers moved into Klaarstroom area and the Yeomanry regiment was ordered to return.  Colonel Parker was told to station five howitzers on Kredouw Pass on the road between Klaarstroom and Prince Albert.

On February 2,  Captain McDowell and Lieutenant Torrain captured three Boer spies outside  Klaarstroom.  McDowell actually rode into the village, but found so many Boers there that he did an immediate about turn and charged off in the direction of  Prince Albert. The Boers set off in pursuit and caught up with the British at Remhoogte. A skirmish ensued and during this Corporal Boyd was mortally  wounded. It was just after all this action that Johannes Klue stumbled upon him.

After the war Corporal Boyd’s wife asked for him to be re-intered in the nearest Anglican graveyard.  He is  one of two soldiers buried behind the Church of the Good Shepherd in Klaarstroom. The other is Trooper T R Hirschfords of Brabants Horse, who was killed in the area 12 days later.

Klue’s grave remained unmarked until the commemorative centenary of the War in 2002. Then, one day, the Friends of Fransie Pienaar Museum visited his lonely, long forgotten grave and laid a wreath on it.   At the time local researcher Helena Marincowitz said: “The wreath-laying ceremony was very moving.  No one has been near this grave in almost a century. “   The Friends of Fransie Pienaar Museum then arranged for a  small name plaque to be  erected on Klue’s grave.   When it was ready several members of the community went out with the local dominee who said a prayer after the little stone was erected on the grave.

The graveyard at Deelfontein

Lord Roberts chose the spot, but it was two dynamic English women who ensured that Deelfontein Military Hospital became a reality.  Those who have seen Deelfontein wonder why such a far-flung spot was chosen as a site for a major hospital.  The Anglo-Boer War was at its height in January, 1900, when Sir Redvers Buller was recalled and Lord Roberts sent to South Africa to replace him as commander-in-chief of the British Forces.   (Lord Roberts heard the news of his appointment and of the death of his only son, Freddy, who had been killed at Colenso, almost simultaneously.)

Roberts soon discovered that typhoid (enteric fever) was rife throughout the British Army and realised that a military hospital was urgently required.     He chose Deelfontein  as the ideal spot.  Four major factors influenced his decision. Deelfontein was close to the war zone, which in February, 1900, was in the vicinity of De Aar.  The climate in the area was a healthy one, there was plenty of sunshine for convalescing patients to enjoy and there was an excellent supply of fresh drinking water (it was the polluted water that caused the typhoid).  Also, the adjacent railway station meant that supplies could be easily brought in and men too badly wounded or too ill to stay in South Africa could be sent to Cape Town by rail and shipped home.   Lady Chesham and Lady Georgina Curzon (later Countess Howe), both distressed by the war immediately set about collecting funds for the hospital.    They were horrified when they heard of a telegram sent by Sir Redvers Buller to the War Office. He called for 8 000 re-inforcements, but urged that the right kind of men should be sent. “They should be equipped as mounted infantry, be able to shoot as well as possible and ride decently.”  George Wyndham, parliamentary under-secretary at the War office saw this as an excellent way of strengthening the Yeomanry, a service which had been considered a sham during the Crimean  and Peninsular Wars.  (The Yeomanry were volunteer mounted troops, mostly good riders and marksmen, who supplemented the armed forced in times of national emergency.)

Within a week of the arrival of Buller’s telegram the Press were calling for volunteers and the two women had leapt into action.  Within a short time they had collected £174 000 – sufficient to equip and staff a hospital. Doctors, nurses and other medical specialists began arriving at Deelfontein on March 3, 1900. Water and electricity was laid on and the hospital opened on March 17, under the command of Colonel A T Sloggert, CMG, RAMC, a man with two years experience of running such a hospital.  He found the location a fortunate choice. His staff consisted of Mr HD Fripp, senior surgeon, 19 other doctors, an ophthalmologist, a dentist, 10 surgical dressers, 40 nursing sisters, 10 ward maids, 76 St John’s Ambulance men and 110 orderlies.

Two days  later the first ambulance train arrived carrying 101 men. By the end of the month there were 300 patients in prefabricated buildings and tents.  Lady Chesham came to visit in May.  By the end of the year 6 000 patients had been treated and by the time the hospital closed 134 graves scarred the veld.

The Yeomanry Hotel at Deelfontein

It’s only a lonely little railway siding like so many on the plains of the Great Karoo. What makes Deelfontein eerily different, however, are its buildings. They have an old-world air of elegance and appear to have been designed to reflect the glories of the British Empire.  Not many tourists take this route, but Wally and I discovered this spot as we drove along a road less travelled between Richmond and De Aar.  Suddenly, as we reached a level crossing saw these intriguing buildings lurking like a ghostly mirage across the way from a forlorn railway station.   There they stood a sad, silent, dusty, dilapidated and a decaying paradox to the two pristine cemeteries further down the road.  The spot demanded a closer look, so we stopped and spent many more hours than we’d intended, rambling through the ruins and investigating the graves.   Deelfontein has a haunting quality and it called us back again and again, but sadly each time we visited the buildings had sunk further into decline.

Despite their pompous air of Queen and Empire, the buildings came too late to share in that glorious chapter of history.  The hotel was built after the Anglo-Boer War in the hopes that it would house visitors to wished to pay their respects to departed loved ones.  The plan was not really successful and The Yeomanry Hotel was never as popular as the owners had hoped. Local farmers say there was many an evening when they heard the haunting sounds of Joseph Adamstein’s violin creeping across the plains to greet the coming night.  Then they knew the old man was lonely and once again had no visitors at his hotel.

On our first visit little windows with ornate gold lettering still announced “Canteen”, “Bar”, “Entrance”, “Dining Room” and so on, but on subsequent trips these had vanished or been smashed.  I have never been able to understand what drives people to vandalise abandoned buildings and smash every window in sight.

A mouldering wall enclosed a whisper of an old-time garden, shaded by palm trees and a massive arch with “Yeomanry” and “1901” on its facade indicated the entrance.  Inside in the one-time lounge and dining room area were the remains of once stunning murals painted by a roving artist.  Many did such work for the price of a bed and a few meals.   But this was only what the eye could see – the once magnificent buildings had been torn apart to create sheep kraals and cattle pens.

Deelfontein in its day was the largest surgical and convalescent hospital set up by the British during the Anglo-Boer War.   It had a first class team of doctors and nurses and one of the first mobile X-ray units used in a military situation was set up here as well as an ophthalmic unit.   Basically a tent hospital Deelfontein was far ahead of its time.   Wally and I discovered this long forgotten spot was a rich fountain of stories.   Its creator was Elias Adamstein, a Lithuanian Jew and a pioneer of the ostrich industry had hopes of it becoming a second Matjiesfontein.  His dream was never realised because the road and the rail followed different routes northwards.     We unearthed stories of bravery, courage, true friendships and undying love which spanned over half a century, but those are other tales!