At the same session the President was allowed the veto on all laws dealing with war.
As Commandant Steenekamp was still prevented by his health from going to the front, I was ordered, as Vice-Commandant of the Heilbron commando, to proceed with five hundred men to Natal.
It soon became apparent that we had been sent to Natal with the object of cutting off the English who were stationed at Dundee and Elandslaagte.

We were to be aided in our task by the Transvaalers who were coming from Volksrust and by a party of burghers from Vrede, all under the command of General Roch.
We did not arrive in time to be successful in this plan.

That there had been some bungling was not open to question.

Yet I am unable to assert to whom our failure was due--whether to the Commandants of the South African Republic, or to Commander-in-Chief Prinsloo, or to Vechtgeneraal De Villiers.

For then I was merely a Vice-Commandant, who had not to _give_ orders, but to obey them.