Life at Pretoria was at this time far from pleasant for the Boers who
remained loyal to their cause.
Most people who had the means, or were not bound to the country by the
closest ties, let their houses and went to Europe until the war was over.
Many of those who did not leave of their own free will were sent away to the
coast, where they were considered safe from plotting against the British,
and the few remaining Boer families were apparently on their best behaviour,
above all dreading the fate of their fellow-countrymen.
The inmates of Harmony, perhaps more than any other Boers, feared being sent
away, because they knew that watching events from afar would be a thousand
times worse than enduring the restrictions of English martial law, and that
banishment would make it impossible for them to render their fighting men
any services. But they found the time of inactivity terribly trying, so much
so that they began to cast about in their minds for work, for mischief—for
anything, in fact, to relieve the daily, deadening suspense and the dread,
of what they knew not, with which they were consumed.
Very galling was the severe censorship of their letters. Mrs. van Warmelo's
high spirit rebelled against the continued surveillance of her
correspondence and she determined to outwit the censor.
Then began an exciting period of smuggling and contriving, which led to the
most complete independence on their part of the services of Mr. Censor, and
ended in a well-organised and exceedingly clever system of communication
with friends in every part of the world.
On
one occasion a sympathiser, leaving the country for good, offered to smuggle
through to Mrs. Cloete any document Mrs. van Warmelo might wish to send.
There was nothing ready at the time, but Mrs. van Warmelo decided to make
use of this opportunity for some future occasion, and wrote to her daughter
on a tiny piece of tissue-paper, "Whatever you may receive in future, marked
with a small blue cross, examine closely."
This was smuggled through in some way unknown to the sender and safely
delivered to Mrs. Cloete, for people were leaving Pretoria daily, and it was
not difficult to find suitable envoys.
Hansie had—and has to this day in her possession as a priceless memento of
the war—a small morocco case with a maroon velvet lining, which travelled
backwards and forwards between Harmony and Alphen until some better way of
communication was contrived. With a sharp instrument Mrs. van Warmelo had
removed the entire tray-like bottom of the case, packed two or three
closely-written sheets of tissue paper in the opening, and pressed the
little tray firmly down in its place again. A tiny blue cross carelessly
pasted on the bottom of the case carried its own message to the conspirator
at Alphen.
A
few weeks later the case came back to Harmony with an antique gold bracelet
for Hansie and a long uncensored letter, in the snug hiding-place, for Mrs.
van Warmelo.
The next adventure was with a charming lady, whom we shall call "the English
lady," she was so very English. (If the truth were known, she was not really
English, but Cape Colonial, and, as is often the case, more English than the
English themselves, and more loyal than the Queen.)
She unwisely said to a friend of Hansie's, who naturally repeated her words
to Hansie, that she would take good care not to convey letters or parcels
for the van Warmelos when she left for England, as she shortly intended
doing, because she was quite sure they "smuggled," or, if she did consent to
take anything, she would examine it thoroughly and destroy whatever it
contained of a doubtful character.
When this reached Hansie's ears she made up her mind that "the English
lady," and no other, would be her next messenger to Alphen. She dismissed
the morocco case from her mind as unsuitable for the occasion, and
deliberated long with her mother. At last she was sent to town to buy three
medium-sized dolls.
It
did not matter much what kind of dolls they were, but they had to have
hollow porcelain heads, and they were to be bought from one man only, an
indispensable fellow-conspirator in one of the principal stores in Church
Street.
When she came home with the dolls her mother seemed pretty well satisfied
with the heads; they looked fairly roomy from the outside, and so they were
found to be when one of them had been carefully steamed until the glue
melted and the head dropped off.
Hansie had been writing, without lifting her head, while her mother prepared
the doll. The sheets of paper, rolled up into pellets, were then forced
through the slender neck, and the dolls weighed to see if the difference in
weight were noticeable. It was not. The head was glued on again, a blue
cross was marked on the body, and the dolls were neatly wrapped in a
brown-paper parcel.
"The English lady" soon after came to pay her farewell call. After the usual
formalities had been exchanged she remarked that she hoped to visit Alphen
soon after her arrival in Cape Town.
Mrs. van Warmelo was charmed and delighted, and asked whether she would be
good enough to take a parcel of three dolls for Mrs. Cloete's little
daughters.
There was just one moment's hesitation, then "the English lady rapidly made
up her mind." "Yes, with pleasure, but I must have the parcel to-morrow,
because my trunks have to be closed and sent on ahead."
Mrs. van Warmelo turned to her daughter in grave consultation. "Let me see,
it is too late now, the shops will be closed, but you can perhaps go to town
on your bicycle early to-morrow morning to buy the dolls and have them sent
straight to Mrs. ——'s house."
"Yes, mother, I'll do that with pleasure, but I won't have them sent. I'll
take them to her myself to be quite sure that she will have them before
twelve o'clock."
The next morning Hansie took the dolls to her fellow-conspirator behind the
counter and had them made up into an unmistakably professional-looking
parcel, tied and sealed with the label of the shop.
Thus were the suspicions of "the English lady" lulled to rest. For her
comfort, should this ever reach her eye, I may say that there were no
dangerous communications in the doll's head, and should she feel resentful
at having been outwitted, she should have known better than to dare one of
her country-women under martial law.
On
other occasions sympathetic friends were willingly made use of, and the
methods of smuggling were so carefully planned in every case that none of
the bearers ever got into trouble, with one exception.
A
foreign gentleman of high position, through his own carelessness, found
himself in a difficult and unpleasant situation. He was leaving for Europe
and expressed his willingness to take letters or documents, provided they
were packed so carefully that there would be no danger of their being
discovered.
Mrs. van Warmelo asked him if he could let her have any little article in
daily use and which he was in the habit of carrying about in his pockets. He
said that he would think about it, and sent her, next day, a silver
cigarette-case with a watered-silk lining. It did not take long to remove
the lining and to pack the letters under it. When the lining was replaced
and the cigarettes lay in neat rows against it, the most careful observer
could not detect anything unusual. These letters were destined for Mr. W.T.
Stead and contained a full account of the condition of the Irene
Concentration Camp.
In
addition to this, Hansie gave her friend a photo of herself in a sturdy
frame, containing a hidden letter for Mrs. Cloete, whilst instructing him to
destroy the epistle if he could not hand it over to Mrs. Cloete personally,
moreover, not to remove the letter from the cigarette-case until he arrived
in London.
At
Cape Town he met at the hotel a man who professed to be a great pro-Boer and
with whom he soon became so friendly that he, finding it impossible to go
out to Alphen himself, indiscreetly entrusted Mrs. Cloete's letter into the
hands of this stranger, with the result that it was taken direct to the
military authorities.
Our friend was arrested the next day as he was boarding the ocean liner, and
was kept under strict surveillance while his luggage was being overhauled.
We
were told afterwards by friends who witnessed the scene that, during the
process, he sat on deck with the utmost unconcern, smoking cigarettes and
toying with a silver case! No further evidence having been found against
him, he was allowed to sail away in peace, and Mrs. Cloete too escaped
without so much as a warning, perhaps because the contents of the letter
were not considered sufficiently incriminating.
Mr. Stead received the documents hidden in the cigarette-case in due time
and made full use of their contents in his monthly magazine, The Review of
Reviews.
Although, surprising to relate, no steps were taken against the conspirators
at Harmony, they soon noticed an extraordinary increase in the vigilance of
the censor, so much so, that the most harmless communications failed to
reach their destination, and when by chance anything was allowed to pass
through it was mutilated beyond recognition, whole sentences being smirched
with printer's ink or pages cut away by the ruthless hand of the censor.
It
may seem a small thing now, but this state of affairs, when letters and
papers were the only consolation one had, became a source of such keen
annoyance and distress that Hansie decided to approach the censor and ask
him the reason for such petty persecutions.
The head censor being away at the time, she was shown into the presence of a
man whose very appearance excited her strongest antipathy. In the first
place he had a purely Dutch name, and she knew that he could not occupy a
position of so much trust under the British without being a traitor to his
own countrymen.
Secondly, he seemed to derive much pleasure from her visit and, when she
told him who she was, had the audacity to say:
"I
always enjoy your letters very much, Miss van Warmelo; they quite repay me
for my trouble!"
When taxed with confiscating and mutilating them, he was all concern and
innocence personified.
No, indeed, he could never be guilty of such a breach of gallantry and
etiquette, the fault must lie elsewhere; he was her friend, and if she would
promise to bring all her letters to him personally, he would see that they
were passed.
"Miserable Renegade!" she thought, with boiling blood.
Instantly it flashed through her mind that it would be foolish indeed to
make an enemy of this man. Her whole manner changed.
"How very kind of you!" she said. "Yes, I shall come myself if you are sure
I shall not be giving you too much trouble."
"A
pleasure, I assure you," bowing with great gallantry, and Hansie went home
to tell her mother what had happened.
After this interview with the censor, he allowed their letters to pass with
unfailing regularity.
True to her promise, Hansie took her European mail to him herself every
week, and this brought her into contact with him frequently. He was always
affable (hatefully affable) and obliging, and the thought of this man made
it more and more difficult for her to write, especially those letters
destined for the north of Holland.
One day she asked her mother to think of some plan by which she could use
the censor for her own purposes, without his knowledge, and this set Mrs.
van Warmelo's active mind and resourceful brain working, with what result we
shall see in our next chapter.
