The Petticoat Commando Part 31

"I am surprised you did not," her mother retorted.

"Well, you see, I had no lamp and I was afraid I should be arrested, and besides, you would have been terrified to death, thinking I was in the hands of the English with that precious time-table."

CHAPTER XXIII

SYSTEM EMPLOYED BY THE SECRET COMMITTEE

Mr. Willem Bosch, a cripple, unable to take active work upon himself, acted as Secretary to the Committee, Mr. Els was old and infirm, and Mr. Botha, as we have heard, had been struck by lightning and was frequently prostrate with headaches of an intensely severe nature.

But for these infirmities these men would have been on commando with their brother burghers.

The wider circle of conspirators consisted of ten or twelve men and women, who carried out the instructions of the Committee, but in no case attended their meetings or conferred with them in the presence of the spies from the field.

Their work chiefly consisted in finding out men anxious to escape from town and ignorant of the way to go about it--an exceedingly difficult and dangerous task, with so many National Scouts and other traitors in their midst.

In order to protect themselves from the danger of being led into a trap, the following precautions were taken by the Committee and strictly carried out by their fellow-workers:

When a man was found anxious to join the Boers, he was instructed, under the most binding injunctions to secrecy, to keep himself in readiness to depart at a given moment, on the shortest possible notice. The arrival of an escort from commando was then awaited.

They did not have long to wait, as two or three times a week, without fail, a small escort of armed men was to be found at a certain spot in the vicinity of the capital, while one of their number was sent into town to inform the Committee of the fact.

The fugitive was then instructed to walk slowly in a certain street, from one point to another at a given hour. Here he was met by a man unknown to him, usually one of the four, who signed to him to follow him.

He was not allowed to speak to or follow his leader too closely. It was not known to him beforehand whether his destination lay north, south, east, or west. He had but to follow and to find himself, as darkness fell, in the hands of the armed burghers.

The men in town were unarmed. It was one of the first rules of the Committee that no spy entering the town should carry arms of any description, this rule having been made to safeguard them from death in the event of their being taken by the enemy.

Too often was this precaution disregarded by young and hot-headed spies, who took the risk upon themselves, preferring death to falling into the hands of the English.

Captain Naude's case was recognised by the Committee as an exception when once it became known to them that a heavy price had been set on his head.

Incidentally I may remark here that this sum was known, during the early part of the war, to be 500 and that it was gradually increased to 1,500, as the Captain became more notorious for the daring nature of his enterprises. He was told by an English officer; after the war, that the British had spent over 9,000 in the vain attempt to capture him. This statement may, or may not, have been correct, but certain it is that nothing was left undone to put an end to his activities, numbers of men and women being employed, under liberal payment, to trap him when he visited Pretoria.

In the field, too, his life was known to be even more precarious than in town, for many were the hirelings surrounding him, watching their chances to capture him and hand him, dead or living, into the power of his foes.

It was therefore an understood thing that Captain Naude should at all times be armed, heavily armed, in the field and when he came to town.

Not so the Secret Committee. What might be his only safeguard would, in the event of their arrest, prove to be their undoing, and this they fully realised as they remonstrated, not once, but many times, with the young spies who worked for them.

The violation of this rule, which they wished to see enforced so rigorously, was sometimes followed by most terrible consequences.

That this brave band of earnest men should have continued their work so long, beset, as they were, with a thousand dangers and difficulties, is a marvel indeed. With so much treachery in the air, it is a wonder to us still that they were able to carry out their daring enterprise with so much success and to escape detection for so long.

But they were prudent and cautious, they knew and trusted one another, and they observed, with conscientious thoroughness, the unwritten motto of the Committee:

"Think quickly, act firmly, calmly, prudently, without fear. Speak as little as possible."

Terrible were the experiences of some of the men on their secret visits to the town.

Captain Naude, arriving one night at the house of his friend Mr.

Hattingh (the spies naturally did not take shelter in their own homes), was informed that his mother lay dangerously ill in her house close by. It was feared that she would not recover. In the shadows which enveloped her she seemed to have forgotten all about the war, and her only cry was for him, her son.

What was he to do? His mother was surrounded by nurses, and the house was filled with relatives and friends.

As Captain of the Secret Service, his name was too well known. He could not show himself at such a time, when he had every reason to believe that the enemy was watching him with extra vigilance.

The next news, while he was still in hopeless deliberation, was that his mother had pa.s.sed away.

It needs a strong man's most powerful self-control to "act firmly, calmly, prudently," at such a time, and yet even then he restrained the impulse to go to her.

Of what avail to kiss that icy brow?

Next day, from his hiding-place behind the window curtain, he watched his mother's funeral procession, pa.s.sing by.

His comrade, Johannes Coetzee, nicknamed Baden-Powell, the man who had left the town with him on his second expedition, once had a miraculous escape from death.

He was leaving for commando with a bag containing clothes, a number of Mauser cartridges which the Committee in town had collected by degrees, when he was taken prisoner by the enemy just as he was nearing the wire enclosure.

He was immediately taken to the Commandant, who examined the bundle containing the contraband articles, and ordered him to be escorted to another Department. Of his guilt, proof positive had been found, but this fact was not conveyed to the armed soldier who was about to escort him to his doom.

On their way, he knew not where, Coetzee pleaded with the guard to release him.

"I have been taken under false pretences," he said. "I am innocent, an employee at the Lunatic Asylum. If you will escort me over the railway line, I will pay you."

"How much money have you?" the man asked.

Coetzee took some silver from his pocket, counted it and said:

"I have only thirteen s.h.i.+llings."

"That will do," his guard replied, and conducted him in safety to the asylum, in the vicinity of which he found his tethered horse, still waiting for his return, the soldier himself holding his horse and a.s.sisting him to mount with the bag containing the ammunition.

Disregard for wise counsel from older men, head-strong self-will, and a sheer indifference to death and danger were the causes of much disaster in those days.

On the other hand, recklessness and the very disregard for death mentioned above brought more than one man safely through the fierce fires of adversity, as we shall see in the tragic and stirring events to be recorded in this and the next chapter.

One there was amongst the spies, noted for his extraordinary bravery, a hero of the rarest type, of whom we can only speak with bated breath and thrilling hearts. In the brief record of his heroic life--and still more heroic death--we have a rich inheritance.

Adolph Krause was his name, a man still young, a married man. He was a German by birth, but a full burgher of the State for which he sacrificed his n.o.ble life.

The first time Krause had left the capital he had been escorted out, with eight other Germans, by Mr. Willem Botha, while Captain Naude conducted seven or eight young Boers to the freedom of the veld.

There had been no adventures then.