London to Ladysmith via Pretoria by Winston Spencer Churchill

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The train whereby we were to travel was required for other business
besides; and I noticed about a hundred Boers embarking with their horses
in a dozen large cattle trucks behind the engine. At or about noon we
steamed off, moving slowly along the line, and Captain Haldane pointed
out to me the ridge of Elandslaagte, and gave me some further account of
that successful action and of the great skill with which Hamilton had
directed the infantry attack. The two Boers who were guarding us
listened with great interest, but the single observation they made was
that we had only to fight Germans and Hollanders at Elandslaagte. 'If
these had been veldt Boers in front of you----' My companion replied
that even then the Gordon Highlanders might have made some progress.
Whereat both Boers laughed softly and shook their heads with the air of
a wiseacre, saying, 'You will know better when you're as old as me,' a
remark I constantly endure from very worthy people.

Two stations beyond Elandslaagte the Boer commando, or portion of
commando, left the train, and the care and thought that had been
lavished on the military arrangements were very evident. All the
stations on the line were fitted with special platforms three or four
hundred yards long, consisting of earth embankments revetted with wood
towards the line and sloping to the ground on the other side. The
horsemen were thereby enabled to ride their horses out of the trucks,
and in a few minutes all were cantering away across the plain. One of
the Boer guards noticed the attention I paid to these arrangements. 'It
is in case we have to go back quickly to the Biggarsberg or Laing's
Nek,' he explained. As we travelled on I gradually fell into
conversation with this man. His name, he told me, was Spaarwater, which
he pronounced _Spare-_water. He was a farmer from the Ermolo district.
In times of peace he paid little or no taxes. For the last four years he
had escaped altogether. The Field Cornet, he remarked, was a friend of
his. But for such advantages he lay under the obligation to serve
without pay in war-time, providing horse, forage, and provisions. He was
a polite, meek-mannered little man, very anxious in all the discussion
to say nothing that could hurt the feelings of his prisoners, and I took
a great liking to him. He had fought at Dundee. 'That,' he said, 'was a
terrible battle. Your artillery? _Bang! bang! bang_! came the shells all
round us. And the bullets! _Whew_, don't tell me the soldiers can't
shoot. They shoot jolly well, old chappie. I, too, can shoot. I can hit
a bottle six times out of seven at a hundred yards, but when there is a
battle then I do not shoot so well.'

The other man, who understood a little English, grinned at this, and
muttered something in Dutch.

'What does he say?' I inquired.

'He says "He too,"' replied Spaarwater. 'Besides, we cannot see your
soldiers. At Dundee I was looking down the hill and saw nothing except
rows of black boots marching and the black belts of one of the
regiments.'

'But,' I said, 'you managed to hit some of them after all.'

He smiled, 'Ah, yes, we are lucky, and God is on our side. Why, after
Dundee, when we were retiring, we had to cross a great open plain, never
even an ant-hill, and you had put twelve great cannons--I counted
them--and Maxims as well, to shoot us as we went; but not one fired a
shot. Was it not God's hand that stopped them? After that we knew.'

I said: 'Of course the guns did not fire, because you had raised the
white flag.'

'Yes,' he answered, 'to ask for armistice, but not to give in. We are
not going to give in yet. Besides, we have heard that your Lancers
speared our wounded at Elandslaagte.' We were getting on dangerous
ground. He hastened to turn the subject. 'It's all those lying
newspapers that spread these reports on both sides, just like the
capitalists made the war by lying.'

A little further on the ticket collector came to join in the
conversation. He was a Hollander, and very eloquent.

'Why should you English take this country away from us?' he asked, and
the silent Boer chimed in broken English. 'Are not our farms our own?
Why must we fight for them?'

I endeavoured to explain the ground of our quarrel. 'After all British
government is not a tyranny.'

'It's no good for a working-man,' said the ticket collector; 'look at
Kimberley. Kimberley was a good place to live in before the capitalists
collared it. Look at it now. Look at me. What are my wages?'

I forget what he said they were, but they were extraordinary wages for a
ticket collector.

'Do you suppose I should get such wages under the English Government?'

I said 'No.'

'There you are,' he said. 'No English Government for me,' and added
inconsequently, 'We fight for our freedom.'

Now I thought I had an argument that would tell. I turned th the farmer,
who had been listening approvingly:

'Those are very good wages.'

'Ah, yes.'

'Where does the money come from?'

'Oh, from the taxes ... and from the railroad.'

'Well, now, you send a good deal of your produce by rail, I suppose?'

'Ya' (an occasional lapse into Dutch).

'Don't you find the rates very high?'

'Ya, ya,' said both the Boers together; 'very high.'

'That is because he' (pointing to the ticket collector) 'is getting such
good wages. You are paying them.' At this they both laughed heartily,
and Spaarwater said that that was quite true, and that the rates were
too high.

'Under the English Government,' I said, 'he will not get such high
wages; you will not have to pay such high rates.'

They received the conclusion in silence. Then Spaarwater said, 'Yes, but
we shall have to pay a tribute to your Queen.'

'Does Cape Colony?' I asked.

'Well, what about that ironclad?'

'A present, a free-will offering because they are contented--as you will
be some day--under our flag.'

'No, no, old chappie, we don't want your flag; we want to be left alone.
We are free, you are not free.'

'How do you mean "not free"?'

'Well, is it right that a dirty Kaffir should walk on the
pavement--without a pass too? That's what they do in your British
Colonies. Brother! Equal! Ugh! Free! Not a bit. We know how to treat
Kaffirs.'

Probing at random I had touched a very sensitive nerve. We had got down
from underneath the political and reached the social. What is the true
and original root of Dutch aversion to British rule? It is not Slagters
Nek, nor Broomplatz, nor Majuba, nor the Jameson Raid. Those incidents
only fostered its growth. It is the abiding fear and hatred of the
movement that seeks to place the native on a level with the white man.
British government is associated in the Boer farmer's mind with violent
social revolution. Black is to be proclaimed the same as white. The
servant is to be raised against the master; the Kaffir is to be declared
the brother of the European, to be constituted his legal equal, to be
armed with political rights. The dominant race is to be deprived of
their superiority; nor is a tigress robbed of her cubs more furious than
is the Boer at this prospect.

I mused on the tangled skein of politics and party principles. This
Boer farmer was a very typical character, and represented to my mind all
that was best and noblest in the African Dutch character. Supposing he
had been conducting Mr. Morley to Pretoria, not as a prisoner of war,
but as an honoured guest, instead of me, what would their conversation
have been? How excellently they would have agreed on the general
question of the war! I could imagine the farmer purring with delight as
his distinguished charge dilated in polished sentences upon liberty and
the rights of nationalities. Both would together have bewailed the
horrors of war and the crime of aggression; both would have condemned
the tendencies of modern Imperialism and Capitalism; both would have
been in complete accord whenever the names of Rhodes, Chamberlain, or
Milner were mentioned. And the spectacle of this citizen soldier, called
reluctant, yet not unwilling, from the quiet life of his farm to fight
bravely in defence of the soil on which he lived, which his fathers had
won by all manner of suffering and peril, and to preserve the
independence which was his pride and joy, against great enemies of
regulars--surely that would have drawn the most earnest sympathy of the
eminent idealist. And then suddenly a change, a jarring note in the duet
of agreement.

'_We_ know how to treat Kaffirs in _this_ country. Fancy letting the
black filth walk on the pavement!'

And after that no more agreement: but argument growing keener and
keener; gulf widening every moment.

'Educate a Kaffir! Ah, that's you English all over. No, no, old chappie.
We educate 'em with a stick. Treat 'em with humanity and
consideration--I like that. They were put here by the God Almighty to
work for us. We'll stand no damned nonsense from them. We'll keep them
in their proper places. What do you think? Insist on their proper
treatment will you? Ah, that's what we're going to see about now. We'll
settle whether you English are to interfere with us before this war is
over.'

The afternoon dragged away before the train passed near Dundee.
Lieutenant Frankland had helped to storm Talana Hill, and was much
excited to see the field of battle again under these new circumstances.
'It would all have been different if Symons had lived. We should never
have let them escape from under our guns. That commando would have been
smashed up altogether.'

'But what about the other commando that came up the next day?'

'Oh, the General would have managed them all right. He'd have, soon
found some way of turning them out.' Nor do I doubt he would, if the
fearless confidence with which he inspired his troops could have
protected his life. But the bullet is brutally indiscriminating, and
before it the brain of a hero or the quarters of a horse stand exactly
the same chance to the vertical square inch.

After Talana Hill was lost to view we began to search for Majuba, and
saw it just as night closed in--a great dark mountain with memories as
sad and gloomy as its appearance. The Boer guards pointed out to us
where they had mounted their big cannons to defend Laing's Nek, and
remarked that the pass was now impregnable. I could not resist saying,
'This is not the only road into the Transvaal.' 'Ah, but you English
always come where we want you to come.'

We now approached the frontier. I had indulged in hopes of leaving the
train while in the Volksrust Tunnel by climbing out of the window. The
possibility had, however, presented itself to Spaarwater, for he shut
both windows, and just before we reached the entrance opened the breech
of his Mauser to show me that it was fully loaded. So prudence again
imposed patience. It was quite dark when the train reached Volksrust,
and we knew ourselves actually in the enemy's country. The platform was
densely crowded with armed Boers. It appeared that two new commandos had
been called out, and were waiting for trains to take them to the front.
Moreover, a strong raiding party had just come back from British
Swaziland. The windows were soon blocked with the bearded faces of men
who gazed stolidly and commented freely to each other on our
appearance. It was like being a wild beast in a cage. After some time a
young woman pushed her way to the window and had a prolonged stare, at
the end of which she observed in a loud voice (I must record it)--'Why,
they're not so bad looking after all.' At this there was general
laughter, and Spaarwater, who was much concerned, said that they meant
no harm, and that if we were annoyed he would have everyone cleared
away. But I said: 'Certainly not; let them feast their eyes.' So they
did, for forty minutes by the clock.

Their faces were plain and rough, but not unkindly. The little
narrow-set pig-eyes were the most displeasing feature. For the rest they
looked what they were, honest ignorant peasants with wits sharpened by
military training and the conditions of a new country. Presently I
noticed at the window furthest from the platform one of quite a
different type. A handsome boyish face without beard or moustache, and a
very amiable expression. We looked at each other. There was no one else
at that side of the carriage.

'Will you have some cigarettes?' he said, holding me out a packet. I
took one, and we began to talk. 'Is there going to be much more war?' he
inquired anxiously.

'Yes, very much more; we have scarcely begun,' He looked quite
miserable.

I said, 'You have not been at the front yet?'

'No, I am only just commandeered.'

'How old are you?'

'Sixteen.'

'That's very young to go and fight.'

He shook his head sadly.

'What's your name?'

'Cameron.'

'That's not a Dutch name?'

'No, I'm not a Dutchman. My father came from Scotland.'

'Then why do you go and fight against the British?'

'How can I help it? I live here. You must go when you're commandeered.
They wouldn't let me off. Mother tried her best. But it's "come out and
fight or leave the country" here, and we've got nothing but the farm.'

'The Government would have paid you compensation afterwards.'

'Ah! that's what they told father last time. He was loyal, and helped to
defend the Pretoria laager. He lost everything, and he had to begin all
over again.'

'So now you fight against your country?'

'I can't help it,' he repeated sullenly, 'you must go when you're
commandeered.' And then he climbed down off the footboard, and I did not
see him again--one piteous item of Gladstone's legacy--the ruined and
abandoned loyalist in the second generation.

Before the train left Volksrust we changed our guards. The honest
burghers who had captured us had to return to the front, and we were to
be handed over to the police. The leader of the escort--a dear old
gentleman--I am ignorant of his official rank--approached and explained
through Spaarwater that it was he who had placed the stone and so caused
our misfortunes. He said he hoped we bore no malice. We replied by no
means, and that we would do the same for him with pleasure any day.
Frankland asked him what rewards he would get for such distinguished
service. In truth he might easily have been shot, had we turned the
corner a minute earlier. The subaltern apparently contemplated some
Republican V.C. or D.S.O. But the farmer was much puzzled by his
question. After some explaining we learnt that he had been given
fourteen days' furlough to go home to his farm and see his wife. His
evident joy and delight were touching. I said 'Surely this is a very
critical time to leave the front. You may miss an important battle.'

'Yes,' he replied simply, 'I hope so.' Then we said 'good-bye,' and I
gave him, and also Spaarwater, a little slip of paper setting forth that
they had shown kindness and courtesy to British prisoners of war, and
personally requesting anyone into whose hands the papers might come to
treat them well, should they themselves be taken by the Imperial forces.

We were then handed to a rather dilapidated policeman of a gendarme
type, who spat copiously on the floor of the carriage and informed us
that we should be shot if we attempted to escape. Having no desire to
speak to this fellow, we let down the sleeping shelves of the
compartment and, as the train steamed out of Volksrust, turned to sleep.

CHAPTER X

IN AFRIKANDER BONDS

Pretoria: December 3rd, 1899.

It was, as nearly as I can remember, midday when the train-load of
prisoners reached Pretoria. We pulled up in a sort of siding with an
earth platform on the right side which opened into the streets of the
town. The day was fine, and the sun shone brightly. There was a
considerable crowd of people to receive us; ugly women with bright
parasols, loafers and ragamuffins, fat burghers too heavy to ride at the
front, and a long line of untidy, white-helmeted policemen--'zarps' as
they were called--who looked like broken-down constabulary. Someone
opened--unlocked, that is, the point--the door of the railway carriage
and told us to come out; and out we came--a very ragged and tattered
group of officers--and waited under the sun blaze and the gloating of
many eyes. About a dozen cameras were clicking busily, establishing an
imperishable record of our shame. Then they loosed the men and bade them
form in rank. The soldiers came out of the dark vans, in which they had
been confined, with some eagerness, and began at once to chirp and joke,
which seemed to me most ill-timed good humour. We waited altogether for
about twenty minutes. Now for the first time since my capture I hated
the enemy. The simple, valiant burghers at the front, fighting bravely
as they had been told 'for their farms,' claimed respect, if not
sympathy. But here in Pretoria all was petty and contemptible. Slimy,
sleek officials of all nationalities--the red-faced, snub-nosed
Hollander, the oily Portuguese half-caste--thrust or wormed their way
through the crowd to look. I seemed to smell corruption in the air. Here
were the creatures who had fattened on the spoils. There in the field
were the heroes who won them. Tammany Hall was defended by the
Ironsides.

From these reflections I was recalled by a hand on my shoulder. A
lanky, unshaven police sergeant grasped my arm. 'You are not an
officer,' he said; 'you go this way with the common soldiers,' and he
led me across the open space to where the men were formed in a column of
fours. The crowd grinned: the cameras clicked again. I fell in with the
soldiers and seized the opportunity to tell them not to laugh or smile,
but to appear serious men who cared for the cause they fought for; and
when I saw how readily they took the hint, and what influence I
possessed with them, it seemed to me that perhaps with two thousand
prisoners something some day might be done. But presently a superior
official--superior in rank alone, for in other respects he looked a
miserable creature--came up and led me back to the officers. At last,
when the crowd had thoroughly satisfied their patriotic curiosity, we
were marched off; the soldiers to the enclosed camp on the racecourse,
the officers to the States Model Schools prison.

The distance was short, so far as we were concerned, and surrounded by
an escort of three armed policemen to each officer, we swiftly traversed
two sandy avenues with detached houses on either hand, and reached our
destination. We turned a corner; on the other side of the road stood a
long, low, red brick building with a slated verandah and a row of iron
railings before it. The verandah was crowded with bearded men in _khaki_
uniforms or brown suits of flannel--smoking, reading, or talking. They
looked up as we arrived. The iron gate was opened, and passing in we
joined sixty British officers 'held by the enemy;' and the iron gate was
then shut again.

'Hullo! How are you? Where did they catch you? What's the latest news of
Buller's advance? Are we going to be exchanged?' and a dozen other
questions were asked. It was the sort of reception accorded to a new boy
at a private school, or, as it seemed to me, to a new arrival in hell.
But after we had satisfied our friends in as much as we could,
suggestions of baths, clothes, and luncheon were made which were very
welcome. So we settled down to what promised to be a long and weary
waiting.

The States Model Schools is a one-storied building of considerable size
and solid structure, which occupies a corner formed by two roads through
Pretoria. It consists of twelve large class-rooms, seven or eight of
which were used by the British officers as dormitories and one as a
dining-room; a large lecture-hall, which served as an improvised
fives-court; and a well-fitted gymnasium. It stood in a quadrangular
playground about one hundred and twenty yards square, in which were a
dozen tents for the police guards, a cookhouse, two tents for the
soldier servants, and a newly set-up bath-shed. I do not know how the
arrival of other prisoners may have modified these arrangements, but at
the time of my coming into the prison, there was room enough for
everyone.

The Transvaal Government provided a daily ration of bully beef and
groceries, and the prisoners were allowed to purchase from the local
storekeeper, a Mr. Boshof, practically everything they cared to order,
except alcoholic liquors. During the first week of my detention we
requested that this last prohibition might be withdrawn, and after
profound reflection and much doubtings, the President consented to
countenance the buying of bottled beer. Until this concession was
obtained our liquid refreshment would have satisfied the most immoderate
advocate of temperance, and the only relief was found when the Secretary
of State for War, a kind-hearted Portuguese, would smuggle in a bottle
of whiskey hidden in his tail-coat pocket or amid a basket of fruit. A
very energetic and clever young officer of the Dublin Fusiliers,
Lieutenant Grimshaw, undertook the task of managing the mess, and when
he was assisted by another subaltern--Lieutenant Southey, of the Royal
Irish Fusiliers--this became an exceedingly well-conducted concern. In
spite of the high prices prevailing in Pretoria--prices which were
certainly not lowered for our benefit--the somewhat meagre rations which
the Government allowed were supplemented, until we lived, for three
shillings a day, quite as well as any regiment on service.

On arrival, every officer was given a new suit of clothes, bedding,
towels, and toilet necessaries, and the indispensable Mr, Boshof was
prepared to add to this wardrobe whatever might be required on payment
either in money or by a cheque on Messrs. Cox & Co., whose accommodating
fame had spread even to this distant hostile town. I took an early
opportunity to buy a suit of tweeds of a dark neutral colour, and as
unlike the suits of clothes issued by the Government as possible. I
would also have purchased a hat, but another officer told me that he had
asked for one and had been refused. After all, what use could I find for
a hat, when there were plenty of helmets to spare if I wanted to Walk in
the courtyard? And yet my taste ran towards a slouch hat.

The case of the soldiers was less comfortable than ours. Their rations
were very scanty: only one pound of bully beef once a week and two
pounds of bread; the rest was made up with mealies, potatoes, and
such-like--and not very much of them. Moreover, since they had no
money of their own, and since prisoners of war received no pay, they
were unable to buy even so much as a pound of tobacco. In consequence
they complained a good deal, and were, I think, sufficiently
discontented to require nothing but leading to make them rise against
their guards.

The custody and regulating of the officers were entrusted to a board of
management, four of whose members visited us frequently and listened to
any complaints or requests. M. de Souza, the Secretary of War, was
perhaps the most friendly and obliging of these, and I think we owed
most of the indulgences to his representations. He was a far-seeing
little man who had travelled to Europe, and had a very clear conception
of the relative strengths of Britain and the Transvaal. He enjoyed a
lucrative and influential position under the Government, and was
therefore devoted to its interests, but he was nevertheless suspected by
the Inner Ring of Hollanders and the Relations of the President of
having some sympathy for the British. He had therefore to be very
careful. Commandant Opperman, who was directly responsible for our safe
custody, was in times of peace a Landrost or Justice. He was too fat to
go and fight, but he was an honest and patriotic Boer, who would have
gladly taken an active part in the war. He firmly believed that the
Republics would win, and when, as sometimes happened, bad news reached
Pretoria, Opperman looked a picture of misery, and would come to us and
speak of his resolve to shoot his wife and children and perish in the
defence of the capital. Dr. Gunning was an amiable little Hollander,
fat, rubicund, and well educated. He was a keen politician, and much
attached to the Boer Government, which paid him an excellent salary for
looking after the State Museum. He had a wonderful collection of postage
stamps, and was also engaged in forming a Zoological Garden. This last
ambition had just before the war led him into most serious trouble, for
he was unable to resist the lion which Mr. Rhodes had offered him. He
confided to me that the President had spoken 'most harshly' to him in
consequence, and had peremptorily ordered the immediate return of the
beast under threats of instant dismissal. Gunning said that he could not
have borne such treatment, but that after all a man must live. My
private impression is that he will acquiesce in any political settlement
which leaves him to enlarge his museum undisturbed. But whether the
Transvaal will be able to indulge in such luxuries, after blowing up
many of other people's railway bridges, is a question which I cannot
answer.

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