Commando

First published in 1929, this memoir records Deneys Reitz's service as a young Boer irregular in the South African War of 1899-1902. Reitz leaves the Orange Free State to fight, is present at early set-piece battles, and then joins the guerrilla commandos that raid across the Cape and the Transvaal after conventional armies have been broken. He describes horses, hunger, farm burnings, and the long rides that keep a commando just ahead of British columns. The narrative is a soldier's itinerary rather than a general history: what one mounted fighter saw of a war that moved from open battle into a hunt.

Bound in yellow-green cloth with a contemporary drawing in green by R. Caron Woodville on cover. Map endleaves printed green on cream. Pale brown textured slipcase.