England might be—but they? What was it to do with them? They were willing to make money out of either side of the border, and for many reasons preferred being British in name, but if it came to fighting, that was quite another matter!
But in those days most of the “British” in Upington were Russian Jews, and most of the Dutchmen “Nationalists,” whose conception of their duty to Empire was to take all they could get and give nothing in return. There was also a large German element in the village, and a large amount of German money always en evidence; in fact, the “mark” had the purchasing power of a shilling in every store, and except in the bank or post-office English silver was never seen. Anyway, I was far too anxious to get back to my neglected prospects to “wait and see,” for I had a number of men eating their heads off at Nakob; and so away we went on one of the bitterest trips I remember. It was an open waggon, without cover of any kind, and a bitterly cold wind and driving rain set in within a few hours of our leaving the dorp; the jolting of the springless vehicle over the rough track shook my half-healed ribs till I was one big ache from head to foot; it rained nearly all night as we crouched over the blinding smoke of a cow-dung fire at the bleak outspan, and altogether I began to think I had been a fool to leave the shelter of a roof. However, on the third day out the sun shone, and I climbed into the saddle again. A few hours of trotting and I was a different man; for there is no medicine like the sunshine and a good horse. We were too cold to linger by the way, and trekked at all hours through the lonely and desolate wastes of Van Rooi’s Vley, Rooi Dam, Lootz’s Pits, and Cnydas, wild and remote places scarce known even in Upington, but all of them to become prominent a month or two later as the scene of Maritz’s first open treachery. So cold was it at night that the hoar-frost gathered thick on our blankets till it looked like snow, and ice stood in the buckets beside us. I had not been able to lie down since my accident, but at Longklip I at length ventured to do so, and had the first real rest for three weeks or more.
Late at night on Tuesday, August 4th, we arrived at Nakob, and in the morning the police told us that war had already been declared between Germany and France, and that there had been heavy fighting on the Belgian border. This news was from the German police over the border, for we ourselves brought the latest news from our own distant news centre. Speculation was rife as to whether England would be drawn in or not, and the three troopers at our lonely little post, relying for news on a possible enemy over the border, were anxious and uneasy at what I was able to tell them.
However, war or no war, they had their routine duty to do, and on the morning of August 6th, Troopers Hall and Green left for Upington with a prisoner, leaving young Human, a young Dutch trooper from Kakamas, and quite a boy, in sole charge of the lonely post. For they had no other means of dealing with prisoners—no lock-up but their own living and sleeping room, and as one man alone could not guard a prisoner night and day over the long journey to headquarters, the major portion of the “garrison” had to escort him.
Meanwhile, having found my gang of “boys” still in existence, I set them to work in earnest, for I was too near German territory to feel comfortable, and I this time pitched my camp at the base of the escarpment about a mile only from the police post, and in sight of it. Finding it impossible to properly cope with the problem of dragging sufficient water to the pipe to “wash” the blue ground there, I adopted the plan of bringing the latter down to the level; but on the 8th the young trooper rode up to my camp to show me a “dispatch” which a galloper had brought out the forty-odd miles from Zwartmodder. It was to warn the police that war with Germany was imminent, and that they must be on their guard against “covert acts” against their patrols. Poor boy, he spoke English well, but scarcely understood the official language of the document; as for the patrols—well, he was absolutely alone! His nearest mate was at Zwartmodder, over forty-odd miles of bad road away, and from whence the message had been brought.
He had no other white man near him but ourselves, and we knew that barely eighteen miles away there was a garrison of two hundred Germans, not to mention the police along the actual border. The dispatch appeared to point to a possible raid on him at any moment, and we offered to stand by him till help arrived, as it surely would. Meanwhile we were working on the very edge of German territory, and our camp stood within a stone’s throw of it; our horses and cattle were in the habit of ranging over it at their sweet will, for there was no fence or actual boundary, and as the news spread amongst the “boys” I had hard work to keep them from bolting. We worked feverishly all the next morning, German patrols passing in full view of us, but not molesting us. Meanwhile another trooper had arrived from Kakamas with the news that war had been declared on the previous Thursday. Fugitive Hottentots were now stealing over the border, and the news they brought appeared to point to a possible raid by the Germans, who had now forced their own farmers all along the border to drive their cattle twenty kilometres inland. Our own “boys,” who had gone to look for the strayed horses, were chased for a couple of miles into our territory; and as we now heard that the well-disposed German mounted police who had been stationed along the border had been withdrawn, and their place taken by regular troops from Ukamas, we were more on the qui vive than ever. Still, I kept the gang hard at it, knowing that I could only work a few days unless the strong reinforcements we naturally expected were soon forthcoming. Meanwhile Hall and Green returned from Upington, and a further man came in from Kakamas, so the little garrison was now five men strong.
They had scarcely enough rations to keep them going, and were in hourly expectation of the arrival of a force of some kind to hold the line. The position of the little police hut could scarcely have been worse, from a defensive point of view. It was commanded on all sides by rocky, bush-clad ridges, in which ten thousand Germans could have hidden, and barely a quarter of a mile away, in German territory, rose a formidable spitz kop (conical hill), from the summit of which every approach to the British post could have been commanded. The place could have been rushed at any moment. The trooper in charge told me that his orders were to do nothing to provoke hostilities, and if attacked, to make no attempt to hold the post, but to fall back on Zwartmodder—forty miles away—where there were two men! But he realised only too well that, should such an attack be made, he would have no earthly chance of getting away.
But we all fully expected a column to turn up to garrison this important—though neglected—little post; and day after day one of the men would ride to the high hills eastward, from which the roads to Upington could be seen for many miles, but there came no sign—no news; in fact, Nakob seemed to have been forgotten.
Meanwhile my friend Ford-Smith wandered round with a Remington rifle, in the gullies along our side of the border, practising at korhaan and dassies, and wishing they were Germans. He borrowed military buttons from the police, and put them on his shirt, to save himself from being shot as a franctireur should it come to a scrap; but—luckily for us—he had no chance of an outlet for his martial ardour, except one night when my old horse strayed back into the camp from somewhere over the German side at dead of night, and narrowly escaped annihilation at his hands. Those nights were extremely jumpy, for, as I have explained, we were within a stone’s throw of enemy territory, an attack on the police camp was believed to be imminent, and that we should have shared in the trouble was beyond question. However, each morning we were able to flash “All’s Well” with a mirror to each other, for the Germans still held their hand. Of course all communication between the two territories had ceased from the time that the outbreak of war was notified, but news still filtered through by means of natives, and spies were constantly coming amongst the Bastard and Hottentot hangers-on of the police post.
