Trekking On

Deneys Reitz

• Publisher: Arcole Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781787207004
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Prima guerra mondiale

A narrative of the author's life in exile following the Boer War, his work upon his return to South Africa, and his part in the European war, first in South Africa and later in Europe."Breathlessly exciting"—The Times Literary Supplement

Chapter I — Exile

On the 31st of May, 1902, the war in South Africa came to an end after three adventurous years.

Of our family, my two elder brothers, Hjalmar and Joubert, had been captured by the British troops, but my father, my younger brother Arend and I served in the field until peace was made.

My father was Secretary of State for the Transvaal Republic under President Kruger at the beginning of the war, but later, when things went badly for the Boer cause, he carried a musket like the rest of us. At the conclusion of the peace treaty of Vereeniging he refused to accept its terms, and my brother Arend and I followed his example. Consequently Sir Alfred Milner, the British High Commissioner, ordered us to be deported.

He allowed us, however, a short period of grace, that my father might settle his affairs in Pretoria, and for a fortnight we were back in the town that had been our home.

We found our house occupied by a British general, and we could not go near it because sentries were posted in the grounds. But my father managed to realise some other properties he owned for what seemed to us a large sum of money, and, our time having expired, we were placed on board a railway train and escorted to Ressano Garcia, the first Portuguese village across the Eastern Transvaal border.

From here we travelled to the coast to Lourenço Marquez. We tramped its sandy streets until we found cheap lodgings, and then sat down to consider the future. My father favoured the idea of going to the United States where, he said, one might live a free man under a republican flag, but I did not want to go there.

Nearly two years before, Georges de Gourville, a wounded Frenchman whom I had helped to nurse, told me about Madagascar, a French possession off the east coast of Africa. He said that if we lost the war we could take refuge there, and through the rest of the campaign Madagascar had lain at the back of my thoughts.

Now that we had the world before us, I argued and pleaded with my father until at last he gave in. He agreed that after all the main point was a republic, and as Madagascar belonged to one, my brother and I could go there on condition that we first accompanied him to France to make enquiries.

We were glad enough to compromise, for it meant a longer voyage and more countries to see; and when, a few days later, a German ship stood into the river, we went on board, and as she sailed out we paced the deck taking farewell forever, so we thought, of South Africa, our country.

The ship, though German, was carrying a battalion of Gurkha troops from India for some native war on the Somaliland frontier, and the day after we started there was a strange incident.

There were live cattle on board, and I saw the ship’s cook and his assistants lead out an ox. Drawing down his head with block and tackle, they quickly killed him. When the Indian soldiers realised what had happened, the cook and his companions were attacked by an infuriated mob. They defended themselves with knives and choppers, but were quickly overborne, and all I could see was a squirming mass struggling on the deck.

Whistles blew and trumpets sounded the alarm, bringing European officers to the rescue, but it was only by picking each Gurkha separately from the heap that we succeeded in extricating the three men, almost at their last gasp. Several of the Indians were badly slashed about, and when the affair was over I heard a British officer angrily tell the Captain of the ship that if more cattle were slaughtered he would not be answerable for the consequences.

The ship stopped at every port, no matter how small, to load ivory and rubber, so our progress was slow.

At the island of Zanzibar we again had trouble. There were two German emigrants on board, quiet, well-behaved men with whom I had struck up an acquaintance, as I spoke their language. The younger of them, Muller, fell foul of one of the sailors, a bullying German-American, and while we lay at anchor, the quarrel turned into tragedy. My father and I were standing outside our cabin waiting to go ashore, when the little German came up from between decks. His tormentor happened to be close by, and, for no reason that we could see, slapped his face. Quick as lightning the smaller man whipped out a revolver and shot the sailor through the head, the bullet plugging into the planks between my father and me. The fellow dropped dead in his tracks, while the German flung the revolver down, crying “Ich kann es nicht hilfen; ich kann es nicht hilfen,” as he gazed down on his handiwork, a picture of despair. Officers and men came to arrest him, and he was manacled, and brought down the ladder into the boat that was awaiting us.

We took our seats, and before we pushed off the body of his victim, wrapped in a shroud, was lowered beside us. The unfortunate prisoner liked it very little and his face blenched every time he looked at the grim package. When later we returned from land we found the German back before us, as the British Consul had refused to hear the case. He said the murder was committed on a German bottom, and should be tried in a German court.

Next day we returned to Dâr-es-Salaam, and here again the Governor refused to act, so Muller was once more with us. I saw the leave-taking between him and his friend before he was finally put into a cell. It was a pathetic scene. Both men were in tears, and I heard the older man say: “Comrade, no matter what happens, if it be twenty years hence, come to me. With me you shall always have a home,” and so they were parted; one man to go into the interior of Africa, the other to stand his trial in Germany. Nearly all on board sympathised with the poor fellow, and for the rest of the voyage we used to let down bottles of beer and packets of cigarettes for him to take through the grated porthole. A petition was drawn up in which we said that the dead man had started the quarrel. This paper was handed to the Captain for the court in Germany, but I never heard what happened or whether it was of any avail.

At Mombasa we landed the Indian troops, and then sailed slowly up the coast of Africa, touching at many places for cargo, and so worked our way to Aden, and thence through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to Port Said.

Here a party of Egyptians came to see us. They said their country too was oppressed by the British, and they had come to offer us their fraternal sympathy. In South Africa we had always taken it for granted that aboriginals should be governed by whites, and our colour prejudices are so deep-rooted that we did not relish being claimed as fellow patriots in distress by natives, so the incident helped to open our eyes on a great problem.

From Port Said we crossed the Mediterranean, passing between Sicily and the mainland, and after a five weeks’ voyage reached Naples, our port of disembarkment.

My father and brother went ashore first, leaving me to see to the baggage. He had brought with him a dozen rolls of Boer twist, but as there was a heavy import duty on all tobacco landed in Italy, he had asked the Captain to take the parcel on to Amsterdam for him.

Whilst waiting for the rowing boat, I decided that I would at any rate carry one roll with me, as I knew my father would miss his favourite brand. I broke the tobacco into strips and filled my pockets, with the result that the moment I stepped on land I was arrested by two gendarmes who took me to a large prison building. After a long delay, during which I had anxious visions of being lost to sight in an Italian dungeon, I was led before an officer who sat at a table, with a sheathed sword across his knees. My pockets were searched, and with an accusing pile of contraband steadily mounting before them, the magistrate and the police eyed me pretty sternly.

I was unable to follow the proceedings, but I knew I was up for smuggling, and at last I was marched off on my way to the cells.

Luckily an Italian passenger who had been on the ship stopped to enquire what was amiss, and as he spoke English, I was able to tell him. He told my two guards to return me to the courtroom, where he explained that I was a young Boer newly come from the war in South Africa.

The effect was surprising. Throughout the war the continental nations were strongly “pro-Boer” (as it was called), or at any rate strongly anti-British, and I was released at once with smiles and handshakes, and some of the impounded tobacco was even thrust back on me, while a policeman went to fetch me a cab.

We now journeyed via Rome and Florence to Geneva, where we stopped a few days, revelling in all we saw; then to Holland to meet my stepmother and her children. They had been refugees at the Hague ever since the British occupation of Pretoria more than two years before, and very hearty was our reunion.

During our short stay in the Hague, President Kruger arrived from Switzerland. My father attended a banquet in his honour, and the visit created a great stir. Huge crowds gathered in the streets to see the President go by, but so dense was the throng that my brother and I failed to get even a glimpse of him, though we received a minor ovation ourselves, for the people around us saw that we were South Africans.

From the Hague we went to Paris. My brother and I walked the streets, enjoying the sights, while my father did the rounds of various government offices to collect information about Madagascar, for he was a good French scholar. One of the cabinet ministers, (Conseiller d’état) M. Louis Herbette, called several times to see us, and his well-meant efforts on our behalf were to cause embarrassing complications later on. We had other visitors too, including Miss Maude Gonne and Major McBride, both Irish revolutionaries. Miss Gonne had been concerned in various agitations, and was forbidden her native country, so she was living here in exile. McBride I had met during the siege of Ladysmith, as second in command of the Irish Brigade. He had left the Transvaal after the fall of Pretoria in June 1900, and was also in exile.{1}

Miss Gonne was a beautiful woman nearly six foot tall, while McBride was a brave but ugly, red-headed little man, and their mutual hatred of England was so close a bond between them that they were married soon after.

At the end of an interesting week my father had collected a sufficient supply of literature about Madagascar, from which he copied such items as he thought would prove useful, and we prepared to start. He had never been a good business man, and now, when he began to reckon up the outlay since leaving South Africa, he found that he could only squeeze enough money for two second-class fares to Madagascar and twenty-five pounds in cash, between my brother and me. We bought a cheap rifle and a few cooking utensils, for we planned, on getting there, to march inland on foot, subsisting on the game we could find, and we looked forward to a life of adventure and the exploring of foreign parts.

Therefore, in August 1902, we said goodbye to my father and set out on our journey, while he left for America.

At Marseilles we boarded the Djemnah, a French steamer. In crossing the Mediterranean we ran into a violent storm, during which passengers and troops were battened under hatches, for great waves pounded the decks overhead, and it felt as if the ship might capsize at any moment. It was the worst storm that had raged on these waters for many years. Nearly six hundred people were drowned by a tidal wave along the Italian coast, and a number of vessels were sunk, so we were fortunate in escaping.

Soon after re-entering the Red Sea, we passed a squadron of Japanese men-of-war on their Way home from King Edward’s coronation. As we came abreast, a sailor fell overboard from the ship nearest us. Our crew manned a boat, but before they had swung from the davits, the Japanese were already on the water, rowing hard for the man who was swimming far astern, and in a very short time they fished him out.

I had not even known that Japan possessed a navy, so that their efficiency, and the sight of great ironclads owned by a coloured race, gave me further food for thought.

At Aden we had a surprise of a different kind.

The latest cables were brought on board for posting in the saloon, and one of them referred to us. It said “les deux Messieurs Reitz”, sons of the former State Secretary of the Transvaal, were on their way to Madagascar, whither ten thousand Boers, fleeing from British tyranny, would shortly follow them. Ample funds were being provided by sympathisers on the Continent, and France welcomed these valiant descendants of the Huguenots seeking liberty under the tricolour.

This was the work of our friend M. Herbette in Paris. Up to now my brother and I had been unobtrusive second-class passengers whom no one bothered about, but before the anchor was in the Captain was pointing out “les deux Messieurs Reitz” to the passengers and their wives, and they, not unnaturally, seemed astonished at our youthful appearance and our shabby clothes.

I had learned sufficient French by now to understand the drift of their remarks, and I caught such expressions as “des garçons comme ça”, “mais c’est ridicule”, etc., which was embarrassing enough, but our worst fear was that, if similar publicity awaited us in Madagascar, it might defeat our intention of slipping ashore, and marching unnoticed into the interior. As it turned out, our apprehensions on this score were only too well grounded.

Meanwhile the ship continued on its way, and, save for the curiosity of the passengers in regard to us, we enjoyed the long voyage.

We went to Djibout, and thence coasted down Africa, once again touching at many queer little ports. At length we headed across the open sea for the Seychelles, a group of lovely islands lying some days north of the northernmost point of Madagascar.

We stopped at Mahé, and the Captain brought me a French newspaper containing an article in which the number of our adherents had grown to fifteen thousand. It concluded on a high note:

“Madagascar is thus destined to be colonised by the Boers, who rightly prefer the rule of France, so just and so liberal, to the tyranny of Great Britain, so harsh and so brutal. As between the Union Jack and the tricolour, the Boers have chosen the latter. Under it they will become French citizens, breathing liberty, under the other they would be crushed by British rapacity. For the Boers to become British subjects is absurd and abominable, for them to become French citizens is in the natural order of things (dans l’ordre des choses).”

We gathered, further, that elaborate preparations were being made for our reception in Madagascar, and that our arrival was to be in the nature of a state entry. All this made us still more uneasy, for the knowledge that our Boer followers were a myth, and that we had less than twenty pounds in our joint pockets, lay heavily on our minds.

A few days later we entered the harbour of Diëgo Suarez, the first port of call on the Madagascar coast. There was a French cruiser lying near by, and ashore we could see forts and barracks, for this was an important garrison station. Soon after we anchored, when my brother and I were below, a steward rushed down to say that we were wanted on deck. We came up to find the officer in command of Diëgo Suarez awaiting us with his staff. His name was Colonel Joffre, and he had come to give us an official welcome on behalf of the French Republic. He and his officers appeared to be mystified when they saw two beardless striplings in dingy slops appear before them, but the French are a courteous race. Swallowing their obvious concern, they shook hands with us, and the Colonel made a little speech, which was translated into German for me by a young Alsatian lieutenant. The speaker told us of his admiration for the Boers, and of his joy that so many of them were coming to settle in Madagascar. Passengers and crew stood around during the ceremony, and, to add to our discomfort, the Colonel informed us that we were to be his guests at a banquet on shore that night.

Lastly, I was handed a letter from M. Gaston Doumerge, Minister for Colonie...