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THE PETTICOAT COMMANDO
Or
Boer Women in Secret Service
by
JOHANNA BRANDT
With Ten Illustrations
[Illustration: THE WRITER]
Mills & Boon, Limited
49 Rupert Street
London, W.
Colonial Edition
Published 1913
To
HANSIE'S MOTHER
AS A PEACE-OFFERING
FOR HAVING BROUGHT HER INTO PUBLICITY
IN DIRECT OPPOSITION
TO HER WISHES
FOREWORD
In introducing the English version of this book I venture to bespeak a
welcome for it, not only for the light which it throws on some
little-known incidents of the South African war, but also because of
the keen personal interest of the events recorded. It is more than a
history. It is a dramatic picture of the hopes and fears, the devotion
and bitterness with which some patriotic women in Pretoria watched
and, as far as they could, took part in the war which was slowly
drawing to its conclusion on the veld outside.
I do not associate myself with the opinions expressed by the writer as
to the causes of the war or the methods adopted to bring it to an end,
or as to the policy which led to the Concentration Camps, and the
causes of the terrible mortality which prevailed during the first
months of their existence. On these matters many readers will hold
different opinions from the writer, or will prefer to let judgment be
in suspense and to look to the historian of the future for a final
verdict. We are still too near the events to be impartial. But this
book does not challenge or invite controversy. Fortunately for South
Africa, most of us on both sides can now discuss the events of the war
without bitterness and understand and respect the feelings of those
who were most sharply divided by these events from ourselves.
The greater part of the narrative comes from a diary kept during the
war with unusual fullness and vividness. The difficulty experienced by
the writer of the diary in communicating to friends outside Pretoria
information about what was passing inside, and in unburdening herself
of the feelings roused in her by the events of the war, made the diary
more than usually intimate. To understand fully many of the narratives
which have been transferred from it to this book, it must be
remembered that one is reading, not something written from memory
years after the event, but rather the record of a conversation at the
time, in which the diarist is describing the events as if to a friend
who shares to the full all her own feelings and to whom she can speak
without reserve.
Much has happened in the ten years which have passed since the end of
the war. The country which was distracted by the conflicting ideals
and interests of its different Governments and peoples has become the
Union of South Africa. It is now one State. It remains that it should
call forth a spirit of patriotism and nationality which will unite and
not divide its people.
PATRICK DUNCAN.
JOHANNESBURG, 1912.
INTRODUCTION
If, by inspiring feelings of patriotism in the hearts of some of my
readers, especially those members of the rising generation to whom
this story of adventure may appeal, I succeed in raising the standard
of national life, this book will have achieved the purpose for which
it was written, and I shall feel more than compensated for having set
aside the reluctance with which I faced the thought of the publicity
when first I began the work.
I have tried to give the public some idea of what was done by Boer
women, during the great Anglo-Boer war, to keep their men in the field
and to support them in what proved to be a hopeless struggle for
independence and liberty.
As far as I was able I have also described the perils and hardships
connected with the Secret Service of the Boers and the heroism and
resource displayed by the men.
Although it is with the knowledge and consent of the Boer leaders that
I give publicity to what is known to me of the methods employed in the
Secret Service of the Boers, I do not wish to convey the impression
that these events of the war at any time bore an official character.
It is a purely personal narrative and has only been written at the
repeated request, during the last ten years, of the many friends
associated with the experiences of the diarist and of the principal
characters appearing in this book.
In order to preserve the historical value of the book no fictitious
names have been employed.
There are, as far as we know, very few records of this nature in
existence, owing to the dangers connected with keeping a diary under
martial law, and it seemed a pity, therefore, to withhold from the
public materials which may be of use to those who are interested in
studying or writing the history of those critical years.
I cannot vouch for the truth of every war rumour related here, nor for
the accuracy of the information which I have obtained from other
people, but the experiences of the diarist, as they were recorded from
day to day, are correct in every detail.
My Dutch edition of this book, _Die Kappie Kommando_, is now appearing
in the Dutch South African bi-monthly journal, _Die Brandwag_, and
will, when completed, be published in book form in Holland.
In conclusion, I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my
thanks to the Honourable Sir Richard Solomon, G.C.M.G., etc., for the
help and assistance which he has so kindly given me in connection with
the publication of my book.
THE WRITER.
JOHANNESBURG, 1912.
CONTENTS
PAGE
FOREWORD BY PATRICK DUNCAN, C.M.G., M.L.A. vii
INTRODUCTION ix
CHAPTER
I. THE SCENE OF ACTION 1
II. HOW THE MINES WERE SAVED 15
III. THE SURRENDER OF THE GOLDEN CITY 24
IV. MARTIAL LAW UNDER THE ENEMY 32
V. ONLY A BIT OF RIBBON GAY! 42
VI. PASSES AND PERMITS 46
VII. POSTAGE BY STRATEGY 56
VIII. OUTWITTING THE CENSOR 64
IX. JAN CELLIERS, POET AND PATRIOT 72
X. A LITTLE ADVENTURE WITH THE BRITISH SOLDIER 82
XI. PRISONER OF WAR 92
XII. THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS 106
XIII. A CONSULAR VISIT TO IRENE CAMP 124
XIV. NEW DEVELOPMENTS 135
XV. THE FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL SCOUTS CORPS 146
XVI. A CONSIGNMENT OF EXPLOSIVES 153
XVII. THE FIRST INTERVIEW WITH SPIES, INTRODUCING TWO
HEROES 157
XVIII. THE CASE OF SPOELSTRA 166
XIX. DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND! 179
XX. THANKSGIVING AND HUMILIATION 187
XXI. FLIPPIE AND CO. 194
XXII. THE SECRET RAILWAY TIME-TABLE 204
XXIII. THE SYSTEM EMPLOYED BY THE SECRET COMMITTEE 213
XXIV. THE DEATH OF ADOLPH KRAUSE 222
XXV. THE SHOEMAKER AT WORK 229
XXVI. BITTEN BY OUR OWN DOGS 234
XXVII. THE BETRAYAL OF THE SECRET COMMITTEE.
A MEMORABLE DAY OF TROUBLE 240
XXVIII. HANSIE EARNING THE VOTE 252
XXIX. A WAR-BABY AND A CURIOUS CHRISTENING 262
XXX. FORMING A NEW COMMITTEE 272
XXXI. "TEA FOR TWO" 279
XXXII. KIDNAPPING MAUSER THE KITTEN 283
XXXIII. THE FIRST SPIES AT HARMONY 291
XXXIV. THE CAPTAIN'S VISIT 301
XXXV. MEMORIES BITTER-SWEET 312
XXXVI. A SILENT DEPARTURE. "FARE THEE WELL" 316
XXXVII. BETRAYED 324
XXXVIII. THE RAID ON HARMONY 333
XXXIX. THE WATCHWORD. OILING THE HINGES 343
XL. PEACE, PEACE--AND THERE IS NO PEACE 356
CONCLUSION 375
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE WRITER _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
MRS. VAN WARMELO 4
THE SURRENDER OF THE GOLDEN CITY 30
LETTER FROM HEAD OF SECRET SERVICE TO PRESIDENT 70
THE SIX WILLOWS, HARMONY 83
CAPTAIN NAUDÉ 136
W.J. BOTHA 158
GENTLEMAN JIM'S ROOM 178
ADOLPH KRAUSE 225
THE APIARY, HARMONY 289
THE PETTICOAT COMMANDO
CHAPTER I
THE SCENE OF ACTION
When, on October 11th, 1899, shortly before 5 o'clock in the
afternoon, martial law was proclaimed throughout the Transvaal and
Orange Free State, South Africa, and after the great exodus of British
subjects had taken place, there remained in Pretoria, where the
principal events recorded here took place, a harmonious community of
Boers and sympathisers, who for eight months enjoyed the novel
advantage of Boer freedom under Boer martial law.
The remaining English residents were few in number, and kept, to all
appearance, "strictly neutral," until the morning of June 5th, 1900,
when the British troops poured into the capital.
The two people chiefly concerned in this story, mother and daughter,
lived in Sunnyside, a south-eastern suburb of Pretoria, on a large and
beautiful old property, appropriately called Harmony, one of the
oldest estates in the capital.
This historical place consisted of a simple, comfortable farm-house,
with a rambling garden--a romantic spot, and an ideal setting for the
adventures and enterprises here recorded.
At the time our story opens, the owner, Mrs. van Warmelo, was living
alone on it with her daughter, Hansie, a girl of twenty-two, the
diarist referred to in the Introduction.
The other members of the family, though they took no part in those
events of the war which took place within the capital, were so closely
connected with the principal figures in this book that their
introduction will be necessary here.
The family consisted of five, two daughters and three sons. The elder
daughter was married and was living at Wynberg near Cape Town, the
younger, as we have seen, was with her mother in Pretoria during the
war, while of the sons, two, the eldest and the youngest, Dietlof and
Fritz, were on commando, having left the capital with the first
contingent of volunteers on September 28th.
The third brother, Willem, who had been studying in Holland when the
war broke out, had, with his mother's knowledge and permission, given
up his nearly completed studies and had come to South Africa, to take
part in the deadly struggle in which his fellow-countrymen were
engaged.
In order to achieve his purpose, he had taken the only route open to
him, the eastern route through Delagoa Bay, and had joined his
brothers in the field, after a brief sojourn with his mother and
sister at Harmony.
Considering the circumstances under which he had joined the Boer
forces and the sacrifice he had made for love of fatherland, it was
particularly sad that he should have been made a prisoner at the last
great fight at the Tugela, the battle of Pieter's Height in Natal, on
February 27th, after a very short experience of commando life.
He was lodged in the Maritzburg jail at this time, where things would
have gone hard with him, but for the loving-kindness of his cousin,
Miss Berning, now Lady Bale, who frequently visited him with her
sister, and provided him with baskets of fruit and other delicacies,
which helped greatly to brighten the long months of his imprisonment.
Later on, through the influence of his brother-in-law, Mr. Henry
Cloete, of "Alphen," Wynberg, he was released on parole, and allowed
to return to Holland to complete his studies. His name therefore will
no more appear in these pages.
He was "out of action" once and for all, and could not be made use of,
even when, later on, through the development of the events with which
this book deals, his services were most required by his mother and
sister.
The other two brothers, as we have said, had left Pretoria with the
first volunteers.
It is strange that the first blood shed in that terrible war should
have been that of a young Boer accidentally shot by a comrade.
As a train, laden with its burden of brave and hopeful burghers,
steamed slowly through the cutting on the south-eastern side of
Pretoria, volleys of farewell shots were fired.
It is customary to extract the bullets from the cartridges on such
occasions, but one of the burghers must have omitted to do this, with
the result that the bullet, rebounding from the rocks, penetrated a
carriage window, and seriously wounded one of the occupants.
Was this event prophetic of a later development of the war, when, as
we shall see, Boer shed the blood of brother Boer in the formation of
the National Scouts Corps?
Mrs. van Warmelo was a "voor-trekker," a pioneer, in every sense of
the word. As a girl of fourteen she had left Natal with her parents
and had "trekked," with other families, through the wild waste of
country, into the unknown and barbaric regions in which she was
destined to spend her youth.
She had watched the growth of a new country, the building up of a new
race. She had known all the hardships and dangers of life in an
unsettled and uncivilised land, had been through a number of Kaffir
wars and could speak, through personal experience, of many adventures
with savage foes and wild beasts. Her children knew her stories by
heart, and it is not to be wondered at that they grew up with the love
of adventure strong in them. And above all things, they grew up with a
strong love for the strange, rich, wild country for which their
forefathers had fought and suffered.
Mrs. van Warmelo was the eldest daughter of a family of sixteen. Her
father, Dietlof Siegfried Maré, for many years Landdrost of
Zoutpansberg, that northern territory of the Transvaal, was a direct
descendant of the Huguenot fugitives, and was a typical Frenchman,
short of stature, dark, vivacious, and exceedingly humorous, a man
remembered by all who knew him for his great hospitality and for
the shrewd, quaint humour of his sayings.
[Illustration: MRS. VAN WARMELO.]
Some years after their arrival in Zoutpansberg, Mrs. van Warmelo had
married a Hollander, a young minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. Of
him it is not necessary to speak in this book.
He had taken his part in the first Anglo-Boer war and had passed away
in Heidelberg, Transvaal, leaving to the people of his adopted
fatherland and to his children a rich inheritance in the memory of a
life spent in doing noble deeds--a life of rare self-sacrifice.
His family had left Heidelberg a few years after his death, and had
taken up their abode in the capital in order to be near Mrs. van
Warmelo's married daughter, Mrs. Cloete, who then lived close to
Harmony, in Sunnyside.
It was a wild, romantic suburb in those days, being still almost
entirely in its natural state. Grass-covered hills, clumps of mimosa,
and other wild trees, with here and there an old homestead
picturesquely situated in isolated spots, were all there was to be
seen.
Of all the private properties in this suburb, Harmony was the most
overgrown and neglected when Mrs. van Warmelo first took possession of
it.
It was bounded at the lower, the western end, by the Aapies River, a
harmless rivulet in its normal state--almost dry, in fact, during the
winter season--but in flood a most dangerous and destructive element,
overflowing its banks and sweeping away every obstruction in its wild
course.
The property was overgrown with rank vegetation and reminded one of
the impenetrable forest abode of the "Sleeping Beauty" of fairy-tale
fame.
Friends wondered that Mrs. van Warmelo had the courage to live alone
with her daughter Hansie in such a wild and desolate spot, and they
wondered still more when they heard of the alarming experience the two
ladies had the very first night they spent in their new home.
On their arrival, there were still workmen busy repairing the house,
and Mrs. van Warmelo pointed out to one of them that the skylight
above the bathroom door had not yet been put in. The man nailed a
piece of canvas over it, with the remark that that would do for the
night, and that he would put in the skylight on his return the next
day. Mrs. van Warmelo was only half satisfied, but left the matter
there.
During the night one of her own servants, a sullen,
treacherous-looking native, recently in her employment, entered the
bathroom by putting a ladder against the door and tearing away the
canvas from the skylight.
He must then have unlocked the door on the inside, striking about a
dozen matches while he was in the room, and carried various
portmanteaux out into the garden, where he slashed them open at the
sides and overhauled their contents for money and valuables.
Early the next morning Mrs. van Warmelo was roused by old Anne
Merriman, the only woman servant on the place, who came in from the
garden with articles of wearing apparel which she had picked up under
the trees, and which she held up to the astonished gaze of her
mistress. On investigating further, they found the garden littered
with articles of clothing, valuable documents, and title-deeds, which
the thief had thrown aside as worthless, in his search for money.
The only things of value which he had taken with him were a set of
pearl ear-rings and brooch, and a beautiful lined "kaross," or rug,
made of the skins of wild South African animals. Nothing was seen of
him again, but Mrs. van Warmelo immediately got a revolver and kept
watch for him, hoping, yet fearing, that he would return for more
plunder.
This was a sad beginning, and old Anne added to their fears by
predicting every imaginable calamity to the inhabitants of Harmony.
She was gifted with second-sight, so she said, and often saw a man in
grey about the place; his presence "boded no good," and old Anne soon
after left the place, with many warnings to her mistress to follow her
example, before she could be overtaken by disaster.
All this had taken place long before the war broke out. Harmony had in
the meantime been vastly improved, the dense undergrowth having been
cut away, and the row of enormous willow trees, with which the house
was overshadowed, having been removed, while large flower and
vegetable gardens had been laid out, where once a jungle-like growth
of shrubs and rank grass had abounded.
Much of the natural beauty still remained, however, and Harmony was a
favourite resort for many people in Pretoria. Young and old visited
the place, especially during the summer months when the garden was
laden with its wealth of fruit and flowers; and of these friends of
the family many figure in these pages, while some do not appear at
all, having had no part in the stirring events with which this book
deals.
Amongst the most frequent visitors at Harmony were the Consul-General
for the Netherlands, Mr. Domela-Nieuwenhuis and his wife, and other
members of the Diplomatic Corps with their families.
These friendships had been formed before the war, and it was only
natural that they should have been strengthened and deepened by the
trying circumstances of the years during which the country was
convulsed by such unspeakable tragedies.
Although the position held by these men debarred them from taking any
part whatsoever in the events of the war, their sympathies were
undoubtedly with the people of South Africa. They suffered with and
for their friends, and they must frequently have been weighed down by
a sense of their powerlessness to alleviate the distress around them,
which they were forced to witness; but they were, without exception,
men of high integrity, and observed with strict honour the obligations
laid upon them by their position of trust.
Needless to say, they were not aware of the conspiracies which were
carried on at Harmony; to this day they are ignorant of the dangers to
which the van Warmelos were exposed and the hazardous nature of many
of the enterprises in which mother and daughter were engaged, and I
look forward with delight to the privilege of presenting each of these
gentlemen with a copy of this book, in which they will find so many
revelations of an unexpected and startling nature.
It is not my intention to go into the details of the first encounters
with the enemy, nor to describe the siege-comedy of Mafeking, where
Baden-Powell, as principal actor, maintained a humorous correspondence
with the Boers; nor of Kimberley, where Cecil Rhodes said he felt as
safe as in Piccadilly; nor of Dundee, where the Boers were said to
have found a large number of brand-new side-saddles, originally
destined to be used by British officers on arrival at the capital,
where they hoped to take the ladies of Pretoria riding, but ultimately
consigned to the flames by the indignant brothers and lovers of those
very ladies; nor of the fine linen, silver, cut-glass, and fingerbowls
found and destroyed by the Boers in the luxurious British camp at
Dundee. I shall not dwell upon the glorious victories of the first
months, the capture of armoured trains, the blowing up of bridges, the
besieging of towns, the arrival in Pretoria of the first British
prisoners and the long sojourn of British officers in captivity in the
Model School--from where, incidentally, Winston Churchill escaped in
an ingenious way--and the crushing news of the first Boer reverses at
Dundee and Elandslaagte.
Are these historical events not fully recorded in other books, by
other writers more competent than myself?
A three-volume book would hardly contain the experiences Hansie had,
first in the Volks Hospital in Pretoria and later in the State Girls'
School, as volunteer nurse, but I shall pass over the events of the
first eight months of war under Boer martial law and introduce my
reader to that period in May 1900 shortly before the British took
possession of the capital.
The two remaining brothers van Warmelo were at this time retreating
with the now completely demoralised Boer forces, before the terrific
onslaughts made upon them by the enemy.
Blow after blow was delivered by the English in quiet succession on
their forced march from Bloemfontein to Pretoria, and it was on May
25th that the roar of Boer cannon reached the capital for the first
time.
Looking south-east from Harmony, Mrs. and Miss van Warmelo were able
to watch the Boer commandos pouring into the town--_straggling_ would
be a better word, for there was no one in command, and the weary men
on their jaded horses passed in groups of twos and threes, and in
small contingents of from fifty to a hundred.
Mrs. van Warmelo fully expected to see her sons among the number and
made preparations to welcome them, for under the roar of cannon the
fatted turkey had been killed and roasted and a large plum-pudding
made.
Suddenly two men on horseback turned out of the wayside and rode
straight up to the gate.
"Perhaps these men are bringing us news of our boys," Mrs. van Warmelo
said to her daughter, who was watching them with anxiety at her heart.
The men dismounted at the gate and walked up to the two women, leading
their horses slowly over the grass.
No one spoke until the men were a few yards off, when Hansie
exclaimed, with unbounded joy and relief, "Why, they _are_ our boys!"
With unkempt hair and long beards, covered with dust, tattered and
weary, no wonder mother and sister failed to recognise them at first!
When the first greetings were over, the young men gave what news they
could--stupefying news of the advance of the enemy in overwhelming
numbers, and of the flight and confusion of what remained of the Boer
forces.
"What are you going to do?" their mother asked.
"Rest and feed our horses first of all, mother," Dietlof, the elder,
replied. "They are worn out and unfit for use. And when we have
equipped ourselves for whatever may be in store for us, we must join
some small commando and escape from the town. Little or no resistance
is being offered by our men, and it is evident that Pretoria will not
be defended. All we can do is to escape before the English take
possession."
Mrs. van Warmelo then told her sons of the retreat of the President
from the capital, with the entire Government, by the eastern railway
route.
The greatest consternation had been caused by this flight at first,
but subsequent events went to prove that this was the wisest course
which could have been pursued.
In this decision the President had been urged by his wife, and Mrs.
van Warmelo went on to tell how the brave old lady had said to her in
an expressive way, on the occasion of her last visit at the
President's house:
"My dear friend, do not fear. No Englishman will ever lay his hand on
the coat-tails of the President."
It is quite impossible to describe the confusion that ensued during
the next few days.
No one knew what to do; there were no organised Boer forces to join,
there was no one in command, and, after long deliberation, the two
young men, urged by mother and sister, came to the conclusion that,
whatever other men might be doing, _their_ duty was to get out of
Pretoria and join whatever band of fighting burghers there might still
be in the field.
The same spirit of determination not to fall into the hands of the
enemy while the Boer Government was free, and could continue
organising the war, prevailed amongst most of the men in Pretoria, and
daily small parties could be seen leaving the town, in carts, on
horseback, on bicycles, and even on foot. Where they were going and
when they would return no one knew.
On the morning of June 4th, the necessary preparations for the
departure of the young men having been made, as they were sitting at
what proved to be their last meal together for such long and terrible
years, they were suddenly startled by the sound of cannon-firing and
the whistling of a shell through the air.
They listened, speechless, as the shell burst on Schanskop Fort, on
the Sunnyside hill, just beyond Harmony, with an explosion that shook
the house.
It was followed by another and yet another.
So little were the inhabitants of Pretoria prepared for this that
everyone at first thought that the shells were being fired, for some
unaccountable reason, by the Boers, from the Pretoria Forts, until a
few of them burst so close to the houses that the fragments of rock
and shell fell like hail on the iron roofs. The other members of the
family followed Mrs. van Warmelo into the garden: and when it became
evident that the enemy was bombarding the Pretoria Forts, the two
young men immediately saddled their horses and rode out in the
direction in which they thought it most likely that some resistance
would be offered, after having advised their mother and sister to flee
to some place of refuge in the centre of the town.
There was no doubt that Harmony was directly in the line of fire, and
as the great shells went shrieking and hurtling through the air, the
very earth seemed to shake with the force of each explosion.
Mrs. van Warmelo hastily packed a few valuables into a hand-bag, and
fled into town with her daughter, leaving their dinner standing almost
untouched on the table. On their way to town, they found many
terrified women and children huddled under bridges for safety.
The bombardment continued all the afternoon, and ceased only when
darkness fell.
That night, when the van Warmelos returned to their deserted home,
they found the house still standing and no trace of the bombardment
except pieces of shell lying in the garden.
They were much surprised a few hours later, by the return of their two
warriors, weary and desperate after a hopeless attempt to keep back
the English with a handful of burghers, and the news they brought was
to the effect that Pretoria was to be surrendered to the enemy the
next morning. Once more they expressed their determination to escape
to the Boer lines, wherever they might be.
Only a few hours' rest for them that night and then they rode away at
dawn, in the Middelburg direction, on that dark and dreadful June 5th.
It was Fritz's twenty-second birthday on that cruel mid-winter's morn,
and when Hansie saw him again he was a man of twenty-six, with the
experiences and suffering of a lifetime resting on his shoulders.
The fate of the two young men remained a mystery to their dear ones
for many months of agonising suspense, and they pass out of these
pages for a time while we turn our attention to the relation of events
within the capital.