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
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
Incidentally I may remark here that
this sum was known, during the early part of the war,
to be L500 and that it was gradually increased to
L1,500, 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 L9,000 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
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
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
The next news, while he was still
in hopeless deliberation, was that his mother had
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, passing 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
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 shillings.”
“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 assisting 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 noble 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.
Subsequently, in and out he came and
went, with the greatest regularity, and as often as
twice a week he would leave the town with large numbers
of Boers and Germans, eager to join the burgher forces
in the field. His services became more and more
One evening when, after two days’
rest in town, he was again preparing to depart for
the commandos, his friend Willem Botha called to escort
him through the town, as had been previously arranged.
Mr. Botha’s house was in Proes
Street between van der Walt and Market Streets,
while not far away his trusted friend and confederate
Mr. Hocke lived, a man who rendered such innumerable
services to the Boers that his name must not be forgotten
These two men met at Mr. Krause’s
house and found him ready to depart.
Although a man of slender build, he
had now attained to such gigantic proportions that
his friends could scarce believe their eyes, and,
incredible as it may seem, the following is a full
and accurate description of what he had about his
person that memorable night:
Two pairs of trousers; two shirts;
two full Mauser bandoliers over his shoulders and
crossed over his breast; a woollen jersey; a thick
coat; a long Mauser gun thrust into one trouser-leg;
a German revolver belonging to Mr. Hocke; his own
revolver, and a bag of about two feet in length, containing
Mauser ammunition, which had been buried by Mrs. Botha
and was now going “to the front”; boots,
soap, washing soda, cotton, and a number of other
small articles, which had been ordered by the women
on commando that unknown band of heroic
women, fleeing north, south, east, and west with their
men, for whom they cooked and sewed and prayed throughout
the long years of the war.
Krause had been “shopping”
in town for these brave sisters in the field, and
I am sure his thoughts that night were not of fear
for the perils he was about to face, but of satisfaction
and pleasurable anticipation of the joy his arrival
at commando would occasion the women at the front.
Would that one of their undaunted
band could be induced to give the world a record of
their unique and altogether wonderful experiences of
Mr. Krause’s slight form was
now twice, perhaps nearly thrice its usual size, and
his friends, when they looked at him, laughed in incredulous
“Oh, man, what would I not give
to possess a photo of you as you are dressed to-night!”
Mr. Botha exclaimed between his fits of laughter.
It was now 7 o’clock and nearly dark.
The two guards, walking up and down
the street on their accustomed beat, had just withdrawn;
7 o’clock was their dinner hour, this the plotters
In a moment, Krause, with the bag
over his shoulder and one leg of necessity held very
straight, limped out into the open street, “Oom
Willie” (Botha) following and crossing to the
Close to a street lamp, at the corner
of Market Street, Krause suddenly saw a soldier walking
on ahead, upon which he immediately turned down into
Market Street, with the evident intention of pursuing
his way along Vermeulen Street. This his friend
quite understood as, ever on the opposite side of
the street, he watched and followed Krause in his
Again a soldier appears on the scene,
this time walking towards them in Vermeulen
Street. No time to turn back now; forward, boldly
forward the fugitive has been observed.
Under one of the lamps the watcher
on the other side sees to his horror that one of the
bandoliers has pushed its way up to the neck and is
showing plainly above the collar of the coat.
The British guard observes this too,
for he turns under the lamp and watches the retreating
form intently. Just a moment, and he raises his
whistle to his lips, giving forth the shrill alarm.
The game is up. Mr. Botha, unarmed,
can be of no assistance to his friend, who now must
fight his way alone from death and danger. The
Mauser gun, which has been impeding his every movement,
is whipped out of the trouser-leg as he flies, weapon
conspicuously in hand, through the well-lit streets
of Pretoria, until, making a sudden dive, he disappears
between the wires of a fence, into the seclusion of
a peaceful private garden. There is no time to
think. He rushes through the garden from one
side to another, out into the next street, and so
on; block after block he takes, until he finds himself
alone in a quiet street, far from the scene of danger,
and while his enemies are surrounding and searching
the block into which he first had disappeared, he
is many miles away, plodding weary and heavy-laden
to friends and liberty.
Only half satisfied as to his comrade’s
escape, Mr. Botha returned home in sore distress that
night to watch and await developments, and it was
not until Krause surprised him later with another and
wholly unexpected visit that he learnt the sequel
and happy ending of that memorable flight.