CHAPTER XIV[ToC]
NEW DEVELOPMENTS
It was in the winter of 1901, while Hansie was at the Irene Concentration Camp, as one of six volunteer nurses from Pretoria, that Mrs. van Warmelo began her first adventures with the spies, and it has always been a source of keen regret to Hansie that she was not in Pretoria at the time. But one cannot have everything, and the knowledge she gained in the Camp was more valuable to her than any other experience she went through during the war.
I have merely touched on the Concentration Camps in the previous chapter, for obvious reasons, and propose to entirely omit the events of the two months Hansie spent in the Irene Camp.
As the six volunteer nurses were soon after expelled from the Camp by the military authorities, there was, fortunately for her, no opportunity of returning to her labour of love. Other duties awaited her at home, however, and by degrees she came into full possession of the facts connected with her mother's experiences during those months.
Amongst the men caught in Pretoria on June 5th, 1900, when the British first entered the capital, were two heroes of this book, Mr. J. Naudé and W.J. Botha.
These men were destined, through their indecision in allowing themselves to be caught like rats in a trap, to fulfil with honour a rôle of great importance in the history of the war—a rôle unknown to the world, and without which this book would probably not have been written. Mr. Naudé—who, by the way, was well known in town as beadle of the Dutch Reformed Church on Church Square immediately opposite the Government Buildings—had, after the first few days of uncertainty and remorse, no intention whatever of remaining long in durance vile.
With a few comrades in the same predicament as himself, amongst whom were Willem Botha and G. Els, he laid his plans for a speedy escape, and for the purpose of spying more effectually he used the tower of the sacred edifice for which he was responsible, as a point of vantage not only suitable but safe. With a strong telescope he took his observations, unobserved himself, from the highest point of the tower, with the result that a certain route was chosen as offering the best facilities for a safe exit from the town.
Mr. Botha should have accompanied him on this, his first enterprise; but because of Mr. Botha's physical weakness, he having been struck by lightning at Pieter's Heights while on commando, and being subject to severe headaches and unable to walk far at times, it was decided that he should wait in town until Mr. Naudé could come back from commando, bringing with him a horse for the use of his friend. It was as well that Mr. Botha did not expose himself to the hardships and perils of that first flight from the capital, for though Mr. Naudé, wearing an English officer's uniform and carrying his private clothes in a knapsack, escaped with the greatest ease and safety, he and his companion roamed about the veld for three days and nights without finding a trace of the Boer commandos which they were so eager to join.