For several days The Friend had been publishing this short but imperative announcement:—
NOTICE.
From to-day (inclusive) all civilians must be in their homes after 8 p.m., unless provided with a Special Pass allowing them to be out.
The Police have orders to arrest all persons breaking this rule.
N.B.—This does not refer to civilians who are in the employ of the British Government, who will have a pass to this effect. By order,
B. Burnett-Hitchcock, Lieutenant,
Asst. Provost Marshal to Military Governor.
Government Buildings, April 1st, 1900.
This notice was but one of many of the signs we gave forth that we were being fooled by the tricky Boers, and that at last we were compelled to admit it. Far back at De Aar I had seen how constitutionally unsuspicious was the average army officer, how certain he felt that, because he would not himself stoop to deception and treachery, no one else could miss the ennobling contagion of his example; how set he was upon carrying leniency and magnanimity to unheard of lengths, even with an enemy which neither practiced nor appreciated such treatment.
Back in the days at De Aar the Boer spies were thick among us, pretending to have horses or forage for sale, but in reality watching us, and making daily reports to the enemy. Even then I begged my friends among the officers to observe what was going on, and to take steps to keep all Dutch-speaking men out of our slenderly guarded great storage camp of supplies. But the typical officer said then, as he said afterwards for months, "Oh, there's nothing to worry about. These people are our friends." And the occasional wide-awake non-typical officer ground his teeth and whispered, "Lord! Lord! how we are being played with! They know everything about us at every hour, in every move—and we not only know nothing of them, but are being fed up with lies."
Far from merely keeping the Dutch out of our camps, we engaged the people of the country as transport drivers and waggon hands, and even—it used to be said—let them find their way into our corps of scouts and regimental guides. We demanded that they should know the Taal lingo and the country, and the result was that when we marched into a Boer village or hamlet we saw our own people hobnobbing with the residents, and asking, "Where's Piet? How's Billy? How have all of you been getting on?"—hail-fellow-well-met with these alleged "loyalists," who were among the most tricky, shuffling hypocrites I have ever met in any of my travels. On and on we went, never knowing anything of the Boers, and the Boers always thoroughly informed about us.