"Do you see that knoll?" Robert asks Michelle. "Yes what about it?" She asks curious. "Like what does it look to you?" "You must be joking or something. Anybody can see that it is a kopje," Michelle replies.
"No. Look at its shape," Robert insists. Michelle looks intently at it and there is a frown on her forehead when she says: "It looks like a large shoe or a boot of some kind. What does the shape matter anyway?"
My Great Grandfather told me a story when I still was a little boy." Robert says and leans back against the tree and is reminded of his bruised back and his fingers start playing with a piece of grass. Michelle now more than curious says: "Well go on." What did he tell you?"
It is May 1902 and Zacharias Desmond, Zach for his friends, had more than enough of this war. At first they had been victorious and he had ridden with the commando of General Piet Joubert into Natal, but by June 1900 Pretoria had fallen to Lord Robert’s British forces, after they started burning farmsteads to the ground and putting woman and children in concentration camps, trying to brake the morale of the Boer forces.
From that time onwards Zach had ridden with the commando's of
Generals Christiaan De Wet and Koos De La Rey and Jan Smuts and for almost eighteen months, they had fought the new kind of Guerrilla warfare.
The Commando's where divided into small groups, to be more mobile. These small groups had to fend for their own food or take it and riffles, ammunition and horses from the enemy. Just where the British army columns where moving, they where attacked with lightning speed and by the time their main force came to their aid the Boer forces was long gone.
Zach's morale had been broken. He only fought on because it was morally right for him to protect the country that he loved so much from the foreigners and because he hated them for the injustice that they had done to him. The British built blockhouses with barbed wire fences and heavy machine?gun positions, Zach's farmstead had been burned down, his fields that he had cultivated with so much care was destroyed, his cattle had been slaughtered and worst of all his wife Marie and five year old son, had been taken to the concentration camp.
General Smuts had moved the "Zuid?Afrikaansche Repulblic's" gold bullion out of Pretoria, on the seventh of May 1900 and the ZAR started coining it's golden pounds in the field at Pelgrimsrest and other places and the gold bullion and coinery, constantly had to be on the move to prevent the British forces from capturing it.
Just before the peace of Vereeniging Zach and some other boor’s had to guard the bullion and the coinery which at that time was somewhere near Heidelberg. The small Boer escort travelled slowly, for they had to transport the coinery, thirty boxes of gold bullion, captured rifle's and ammunition through very rough terrain.
Constantly scouts where send out and Zach had been riding a short distance from the Oxwagons transporting the bullion and it’s escort when he spotted a large approaching British force. Zach's horse was flying over rocks, pass bushes and trees back to the other boor's who escorted the bullion and where the oxen had already been unharnessed.
Near to the wagons Zach spotted a cave on the Southern slope of a kopje, which had the shape of a gigantic boot. Within minutes the oxen had been teamed up in front of the wagons and the bullion, coinery, rifles and ammunition had been transported to the cave where everything was unloaded and carried inside.
The oxen and wagons where driven away into the open field, where the wagons where dynamited. Zach and the rest of the Boer small Boer force had ridden away from the kopje as fast as they could, but the British had laid an ambush for them.
Zach shot at the enemy until his rifle's barrel was so hot that his hands had turned to blisters, but it was all to no avail. Most of his friends where killed by the British and under the cover of night he managed to slip away, from the boulders where he had been hiding and by stealing a horse from the British, where they camped, he managed to make a break.
Zach tried to find the gold bullion numerous times during the years of hardship, that followed the war, but the knoll in the shape of a gigantic boot evaded him and just remained in his memory. When Zach in his effort to trace the gold bullion had read the official ZAR government version of what had happened to the bullion, he was satisfied that the secret was safe from the British who was running the country since the report stated that the 64142 ounces of gold contained in thirty crates, had been sold to the German company of Wilken & Ackerman and had been transhipped through the harbour of Lorenco Marques on board the ship the Bundesrath to Hamburg in Germany.
"That was a very interesting story Michelle comments and then ask: "Did you never try and find the gold?" "Clemmens and I found two rifle's wrapped in a leather clothe near the creek, before I had heard this story. There had been many rumors about the Kruger pounds and in order not to draw attention to our activities, we decided to dig at night time at the place where we found the rifles."
"Clemmens and I started digging at about ten o'clock one night and used some gas lanterns. We could hear the wind blowing through the trees and suddenly a owl started hooting near to us." "After about half an hour the sweat was streaming down our bodies and we where resting for a while. By this time the wind howled nearer to us through the trees and a dark cloud had shifted in front of the moon."
"When the owl hooted again Clemmens remarked scared: "The ancestral spirits are angry tonight." Suddenly there was a loud wailing from the bushes behind us. I could see the fear written all over Clemmenses face and he said: "This place has got a spell on it."
"We continued digging and every now and then Clemmens looked nervously in the direction of the bushes from where the sound had come. Suddenly a wailing bush hog charged at us and with a "Go away Satan!" We ran as if the devil himself was behind us."
In South Africa today security plays a vital part in any business or private home. This book and the volumes to follow, will guide you step by step through the essential precautionary measures to be taken in protecting your family and valuables. From employing security guards, evacuation of your site and security measures to burglar bars and alarms in your private home.
a Book compiled by me from experience gained after 10 years in the security industry as Industrial relations officer with Nosa qualifications, 1st Aid, fire protection and also S.O.B. grade A.
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