After the ill-fated Jameson Raid (1895) there was increased tension in the Transvaal Republic, of which Pretoria was the capital, and the young Van der Bijl assisted his father in stacking rifles and ammunition collected by the Boer forces in preparation for further British attacks. He was thirteen and attending the Staatsch Model School in Pretoria when the second Anglo-Boer War broke out. He witnessed the occupation of Pretoria by the British armed forces and he was forced to leave the school as it was converted into a concentration camp.