The Petticoat Commando Part 23

"Why?" he demanded.

"Oh, because it sounds as if I trouble you every day."

"Well," he answered, smiling slightly, "what can I do for you?"

"That's better, thank you," exclaimed Hansie cheerfully, and straightway plunged into business.

With her mind dwelling on explosives and Secret Service men, she reminded him of a promise he had given her soon after her return from the Irene Camp, that she should visit all the Camps in the Transvaal and write reports for him, to be sent to London if necessary, for publication in the Blue books.

"I have come to arrange with you about my tour," she said.

"Yes," he answered. "I have thought about it and will give you the necessary permits and every facility. You will travel at Government expense, and I will do all I can to make your way easy, on one condition. You must promise to give me a full and true report of things exactly as you find them."

Hansie was deeply touched by his confidence in her truth, which she knew was not misplaced, and gladly gave the promise he asked from her.

"What you are undertaking," he continued, "will not only be difficult, but dangerous. The accommodation in the Camps will probably be very bad, and what would you think of a charge of dynamite under your train?"

Hansie glanced down at the parcel on her lap and said something about thinking she would risk it.

The conversation was taking an unexpected turn, and she longed to get away, but the Governor still had much to say to her.

"You can safely visit all the Camps except those in the north, in the Zoutpansberg and Waterberg districts, and the one in Potchefstroom."

("Boers ahead!" was Hansie's mental comment.) "And I don't think you ought to go alone. Have you thought of any one who could accompany you?"

"Yes," Hansie replied. "A friend of mine, Mrs. Stiemens, who nursed with me at Irene, would like to go with me. She is the right woman for such an undertaking, strong and healthy and very cheerful."

This suggestion meeting with the Governor's approval, it was arranged that they should visit the camp at Middelburg first, and while they were preparing for the tour he would notify their visit to the various commandants and arrange about the permits.

Permission to hold a concert was instantly granted, and she was on the point of leaving, when he asked her whether she had heard of President Steyn's narrow escape.

Yes, she had heard something, but would like to know more about it.

With evident enjoyment he proceeded to relate how the President had slept in Reitz, a small, deserted village in the Free State, with twenty-seven men, how they had stabled their horses and made themselves generally comfortable for the night, how they were surrounded and surprised by the English, who took all their horses before the alarm could be given, how the President escaped on a small pony, which was standing unnoticed in the back yard, and how all the other men were captured, General Cronje (the second), General Wessels, General Fraser, and many other well-known and prominent men. The President must have fled in the open in nothing but a shirt, because all his clothes and even his boots were left behind. In his pockets were many valuable letters and doc.u.ments.

Altogether this event must have given the English great joy, but I think they forgot it in their chagrin at the President's escape, for when Hansie openly rejoiced and blessed the "small unnoticed pony,"

expressing her great admiration for the brave President, the Governor suddenly turned crusty again and said he could not understand how any one could admire a man who had been the ruin of his country.

"Poor old General!" Hansie mused as she cycled slowly up to Mrs.

Joubert's house, where the spies were waiting for her. "I have never known him so quarrelsome and unkind. I wonder what it could have been!

The German Consul's visit or the President's escape? What a mercy that he knew nothing of----" She cycled faster, suddenly remembering that it was late and there was still much to do before the two men could begin their perilous journey that night.

After she had handed the parcel over to them, with verbal instructions for its use, she bade them good-bye and went home to lunch.

That evening Mrs. van Warmelo took important doc.u.ments, of which we speak later, and European newspaper cuttings to the Captain, with some money for her tattered son, and a letter for him in a disguised hand.

No names were mentioned, and in the event of the spies falling into the hands of the enemy, nothing found on them could have incriminated any one.

They were about to leave when she arrived at Mrs. Joubert's house.

Their preparations were conducted in perfect silence, except for an occasional whispered command, while outside, guard was kept by an alert figure, slender and upright, the figure of the aged hostess of the spies, who, it is said, was never visible to the spies and never slept by day or night as long as these men were being sheltered under her roof.

A brave and dauntless woman she was, knowing no fear for herself, but filled with concern for the fate of the men whose capture meant certain death, for it was whispered in town that on the head of Koos Naude, Captain of the Secret Service, a price of 1,000 had been fixed.

The men left Pretoria that night for the "nest" of the spies in the Skurvebergen, west from Pretoria, and from there they proceeded to where they expected to find the Generals.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CASE OF SPOELSTRA

There were so many events of importance during the month of July 1901 that there is great difficulty in choosing the right material from Hansie's diary.

No wonder that that period seems to have been in a state of chaos, for the things to which we attached the greatest importance "ended in smoke," and seemingly small incidents a.s.sumed gigantic proportions before the glorious spring broke over the country.

Hansie was busy preparing for her tour of inspection through the Camps, though to tell the truth she rather dreaded it, because she was far from strong, but she realised that this was an opportunity not to be despised.

General Maxwell frequently impressed it on her that she was the only exception, that no one else who had applied for leave to visit the Camps had been granted permits--it was against the regulations, and he was only sending her because he knew he could depend upon her. He wanted to know _the truth_, and she, with her knowledge of the country and people, would be better able to draw up reports than any one else he knew.

Very flattering, but Hansie's heart sank when she thought of Irene.

What awaited her on this tour?

On July 27th, when she paid him her last visit in connection with her pa.s.sports, he asked her, as she was on the point of leaving him, whether she did not think the Boers ought to surrender now.

Now, Hansie had firmly made up her mind not to be drawn into argument with him again, but this question took her so much by surprise that she flared out with:

"Don't you think the English ought to give in? Why should the Boers give in? We are fighting for our own, and England is fighting for what belongs to another. Why should England not give in?"

With some asperity he answered:

"I suppose it is a question of 'Eendracht maakt Macht,' or whatever you call it."

"Eendracht maakt Macht?" she exclaimed. "I really fail to see the connection."

"Well," he answered, "isn't Might _Right_ all the world over?"

"No, indeed!" she cried vehemently. "Might is right in England, and your motto is an apt one, but in South Africa might is _not_ right.

_Our_ motto, 'Eendracht maakt Macht,' means 'Unity is Strength.'"

The General seemed much surprised and did not look pleased at her a.s.surance that he had been misinformed as to the correct translation--he had been told on "good authority" that the Boer motto was the same as the English.

"If might had been right," she continued, "the war would have been over long ago--our poor little forces would have been crushed--but unity is glorious strength, an _inspired_ strength."

Alas, alas, that she was so soon to find out how a want of unity can bring disaster and defeat!

"It is very stupid to argue with him. Surely he cannot expect to find my views changing on account of the duration of the war!"