Episode 73 - Malperd Dies, the ACC disbands & The Great De Wet Hunt begins

This week Deneys Reitz finds himself walking, while the Great de Wet Hunt begins in the Northern Cape and Free State. I would like to thank listeners for the wonderful messages I've received and suggestions about topics for future casts. Over the last year a number of listeners have asked that I take a closer look at the American involvement in the Boer War, and I’m busy collecting stories and information for that episode which should pop up by the end of this month. Right now, we’re swinging into the saddle alongside Deneys Reitz However, Horse Sickness was beginning to take its toll in the damp conditions of the summer on the highveld. His own had succumbed a few weeks before and as we heard he’d been loaned that Crazy Horse called Malperd. The highly strung beast may have been hard to manage, but was an indefatigable mount. At the beginning of February 1901 Reitz and his brother Arndt began to move with the Afrikander Cavalry Corps or ACC. The unit was a shadow of its former self, decimated both by horse sickness and typhoid and other diseases. Half of the men were now forced to walk as their animals had died off. They had made the disastrous decision to seek shelter in the badlands to the north west of Johannesburg where fevers lurked.