There was no break in this part of the Boer espionage until the war came to an end.
In the Burgher Camps Department, as the head-quarters of the Concentration Camps in Pretoria were called, there were men at work for us too, men who by smuggling through statistics of the high mortality and other facts connected with the Camps, strengthened the hands of the pro-Boers in England and acquainted the world with the real state of affairs even before the Blue books could appear.
Towards the latter end of the war thousands of burghers had succumbed to their temptations, and the appalling increase of the Scouts Corps preyed on the minds of the Boer leaders more than any other calamity. Everything that ingenuity could devise was tried to stop the burghers from sinking deeper into degradation, members of the Scouts Corps, when captured by the Boers, being executed without mercy and their fate made known far and wide.
Hell was indeed let loose in South Africa and every man's hand was turned against his brother. The worst passions of mankind rose to the surface, were deliberately played upon, making havoc of every tradition of country and race.
In the towns, where the renegades felt themselves comparatively safe under the protection of the British troops, their work was carried on quite openly. It would not be possible to describe the feelings of the faithful Boers when they contemplated this hideous aspect of the war.
Many futile efforts were made to stem the tide of crime, but it was a woman in Pretoria who devised a plan which would undoubtedly have struck terror to the hearts of many waverers had it been put to practice by the Boer leaders, after she had successfully carried it out.
At her instance a trusted mechanic, working secretly at dead of night, made half a dozen tiny branding-irons in the form of a cross, to be used for branding the traitors between the eyes, when captured red-handed. This drastic measure was, however, not resorted to.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Zak-patriotten."