MEMORIES BITTER-SWEET
The Captain's visit was not an unmixed joy. Some bitter revelations
were made, much pathos mixed with the humours of the situation and
tragic experiences related by all--but on these I shall merely touch,
as unavoidable and necessary for the completion of my story.
After the treachery of their own people and the arming of the natives,
nothing troubled the men so much as the fact that the fighting
burghers were, in some parts of the country, suffering from sore gums
and showing signs of scurvy, caused by an unchanging diet of meat and
mealies. The spies wanted to communicate this to some good,
trustworthy doctor and to get medicine for them to take out to the
commandos, but Mrs. van Warmelo told them that no medicine in the
world could cure that. What they wanted was a change of diet--fresh
milk, vegetables, fruit, and an abundant supply of lime-juice, etc.
Sending out lime-juice would be as absurd as impossible, for it would
be as a drop in the ocean of want--and as it was, the men were
handicapped by the two bottles of good French brandy which they were
taking out for medicinal purposes. These could not be thrown across
with the other parcels, but would have to be carried on their persons
as they wriggled through the barbed wires across the drift of the
Aapies River.
In some districts, where the destruction of farms had not yet been
completed, the commando found a sufficient supply of fresh fruit and
vegetables and were in no immediate danger of the dread disease, but
in the neighbourhood of the towns there was nothing more to be done in
the way of devastation, and the only fresh food they got was what they
took from the enemy. As an instance of the thoroughness of the system
of destruction, Naudé related how he and his corps of hungry men had
one day come upon a kraal containing the bodies of over 500 sheep in
an advanced stage of decomposition, with their throats cut or their
heads cleft in two by swords. Too far away from towns or camps to be
driven to some place where they could have been kept for the use of
starving and suffering humanity, they had been slaughtered and left to
rot--anything to prevent their falling into the hands of the Boer
commandos.
No provisions of any sort were left within their reach and they lived
entirely on what they took by main force from the enemy.
A precarious existence indeed!
Not to know from day to day where the next meal would come from and
with appetites sharpened by the healthy, roving, outdoor life they
led, no wonder these men uttered imprecations on the heads of those
responsible for the systematic devastation of the country and
wholesale destruction of food.
The privilege too of stripping their prisoners of their clothes had
its disadvantages, for in many cases they swarmed with vermin and had
to be boiled before they could be used, while a camp deserted by the
English had to be approached warily and with the utmost caution on
account of the vermin with which it frequently was infested.
English prisoners were set free (what could the Boers do with them
otherwise?), but the traitors caught with them red-handed were shot
without mercy--and it was Naudé's duty, as Captain of the Secret
Service, to see that these executions were carried out. This was to
him the hardest task of all.
"His fallen brothers" he called them, and voice and eye when he spoke
of them betrayed compassionate horror and wrath unspeakable.
Armed natives met the same fate, and in a few words he described to
his shuddering listeners how it was done, how he informed the doomed
man of his fate, how the prisoner pleaded for mercy and offered to
join the Boer ranks, how he prayed in despair when he found no mercy,
no relenting, how he covered his face or folded his arms, how the
shots rang out and he fell down dead.
Scenes such as these were witnessed without number, but the execution
of a "fallen brother," when the details were arranged, took place some
distance apart, beyond the vision of the burghers who had captured
him.
But it was when the subject of the Concentration Camps was broached
that the darkest gloom settled over Harmony.
Captain Naudé had a young wife and two children in one of the Camps in
Natal, and Mrs. Malan had procured, as a surprise for him, snapshots
of his dear ones taken in the Camp. When they were placed in his
hands he gazed on them for a long time in silence, finally muttering
under his breath, "For this the English must die!" and from that
moment he was moody and silent.
His thirst for information on the condition of the Irene Camp, as
Hansie had found it, was insatiable, and hours were spent in
discussing the subject and its probable effect on the duration of the
war.
"What do the men think of the Concentration Camps?" Hansie asked.
"Will they give in for the sake of the women and children?"
"No," was the emphatic answer--"never. We all feel that our first duty
is to fight until our independence is assured. _We_ are not
responsible for the fate of our women and children, and they let no
opportunity pass of urging us to be brave and steadfast in the
fulfilment of our duty to our country. Our spies come from the Camps
continually with messages of encouragement and hope; but that the
mortality among them is more bitter to bear than anything else, you
can understand...."
There was a long pause, and then, the Captain continued gloomily:
"I did not recognise my wife on that photo--she has become an old, old
woman.... Sometimes on commando we actually enjoy ourselves. You must
not think that it is all hardship and trouble! I gave a concert, quite
a good one, on the President's birthday, and occasionally, when we
come to a farm where there are still some girls left, we take them out
riding and driving."