The rats weren’t the worst part of it. They made off with Churchill’s candles and occasionally scurried over him, startling him out of his sleep. But what he couldn’t stand was being cooped up underground with nothing to do, alone and bored to tears. How long had he been here? Was it one day? Two? He had lost all sense of time. It seemed interminable. When the mine manager, John Howard, returned, he would explain that he wanted to be on his way. With food, a pistol, an escort and if possible a horse he’d be able to cover the last stretch to the border. After all, he had managed to get this far on his own. From what Howard had told him, the Boers believed he was still hiding out in Pretoria, though in fact he had left the first evening. He had been lucky, for sure, incredibly lucky. But then he always was.
Looking back, it was strange to think how he’d sauntered out of Pretoria, like someone taking an evening stroll. The truth is that he’d been scared to death. Fear had gripped him from the moment he climbed over the prison fence and landed in the garden next door. He’d spent more than an hour there, crouching in the bushes, waiting for his two companions. He’d even exchanged a few whispered words with Haldane on the other side of the fence. Haldane and Brockie had decided not to risk it. The sentries seemed to sense something was up and were more vigilant than usual—though it hadn’t occurred to them to investigate outside the grounds. If Churchill couldn’t return without being caught, he should continue alone. That was Haldane’s advice.
It wasn’t ideal. Churchill spoke neither Afrikaans nor an African language, he had no map and no compass. His companions were going to bring those, along with some biltong and a few opium tablets, the allpurpose painkiller. All he had with him was cash—a decent amount, £75 to be exact—and four bars of chocolate. The house they had believed to be unoccupied was teeming with people. But climbing back over the fence would be idiotic. No, he would continue on his way and hope that his luck would hold.
He put on the hat a fellow inmate had given him, straightened his clothes, smoothed his trousers, stepped out of the bushes and ambled to the gate. He made a point of passing close to the window, trying to look as if he had every right to be there. Out in the street he caught sight of a guard, less than five metres from where he stood. He turned his face away, fought back the panic and the urge to run, and strolled casually into the bustling street. No one even noticed the young man in a dark suit, humming softly to himself.
By the time he reached the outskirts of the city he had worked out a plan. The railway line to Lourenço Marques was his best bet. Nearing a small station, he managed to clamber onto a goods train and hide in a heap of empty coal sacks. At least that would get him out of Pretoria and, what’s more, he was heading in the right direction. The next morning, just before dawn, he jumped off the train. He had no idea where he was, but he found a pool of water, quenched his thirst and spent the rest of the day in hiding. When darkness fell, he looked for a suitable place to repeat the procedure of the day before. He found the perfect spot on an incline where the tracks rounded a bend. The train would be forced to slow down.
Churchill’s luck seemed to have run out. He waited for hours, but there was no sign of a train. Around midnight he gave up and started walking along the tracks. This would get him at least ten, 15 kilometres further. It was hard going. He had to keep making detours to dodge a station here, a house there, sentry posts on every bridge. The moon was full and, to avoid detection, he had to scramble through reeds and wade through water. He couldn’t keep it up much longer. Suddenly he saw campfires in the distance. A kraal, he thought, and decided to try his luck. He had heard that the Africans disliked the Boers, and his English banknotes would probably help too. As he drew closer, he realised he had been mistaken. The fires were ovens, the kraal was a coal mine. He must be on the outskirts of the mining district of Witbank and Middelburg.
This discovery put everything in a different light. In Pretoria he had been told that a few Englishmen had stayed on here to keep the mines running until they could start extracting coal again. But how was he going to find them? There were a few houses nearby, one made of brick. Should he take the risk and knock on the door? He felt for his money. He could promise far more, a thousand pounds, if that’s what it took. It was half past two in the morning. The alternative was to keep trudging through the open veld. Churchill walked up to the house and knocked on the door.
It worked like magic—as if the knock had restored his legendary good luck. The tall man who appeared in the doorway was John Howard, the manager of the Transvaal and Delagoa Bay Collieries, a fellow countryman and someone who was willing to help. Churchill had chanced on the only house for miles around where he would not be turned over to the authorities. Howard assured him that ‘we are all British here, and we will see you through’. He was true to his word. He offered Churchill whiskey and roast lamb while he went to confer with his colleagues. To remain there and continue working they had been obliged to take an oath of neutrality. Helping a fugitive would put them at risk, but all four—Howard’s secretary, an engineer from Lancashire and two Scottish miners—agreed at once. For the time being, Churchill could take refuge in the mine. They gave him a mattress, blankets, candles, a bottle of whiskey and a box of cigars. And good wishes from the engineer, Daniel Dewsnap, who, by coincidence, came from Oldham, the constituency in which Churchill had unsuccessfully stood for parliament six months earlier. ‘When you go to Oldham again, lad, they’ll all vote for you. Good luck!’36
He had scaled a fence, strolled out of Pretoria, hopped on a train, stolen past sentry posts and, with the help of generous compatriots, found a sanctuary in the bowels of a coal mine. So far, Churchill’s escape had been a great adventure, borne along by chance and incredibly good luck. And its protagonist was a daring young man with faith in himself and his extraordinary destiny.
But the story of Churchill’s escape is more than a series of colourful anecdotes. It raises the question of what it meant for the Transvaal—and to a lesser extent the Orange Free State—to be a country at war for the first time. It wasn’t about organised violence as such. Military campaigns, on a larger or smaller scale, were nothing new to the Boers. But apart from their few brief confrontations with the British in 1880–81 and the Jameson Raid in early 1896, they had always been conducted against indigenous adversaries, on or within their borders. And they had generally come to a predictable—successful—end, without seriously disrupting the country’s political or economic life. The present war with Great Britain was of a different magnitude and a totally different order. The largest and most powerful empire on earth had resolved to bring the Boer republics to their knees and was directing all its military, economic and human resources to that end. For the Boers the threat was internal as well. This applied in particular to the two branches of industry that were of crucial economic and military importance to the republics, namely the railways and the mining sector. The mines employed huge numbers of British citizens. How were the Boer authorities to deal with them?
As far as the railways were concerned, the solution was fairly straightforward. The only direct line through the Orange Free State—the southern line and its few branches—was already run by the state and was therefore not an immediate security problem. In the Transvaal, the Dutch-owned Netherlands-South African Railway Company—a source of pride as well as a headache to Kruger and Leyds—had acquired a virtual monopoly in the years before the war and was operating on all trunk lines. Only the local line from Pretoria to Pietersburg in the north was still in the hands of a British company. When, on the grounds of the company’s neutrality, its director refused to make the line available to the military authorities, he and his British staff were deported and the line was taken over by the Netherlands-South African Railway Company. The same happened to lines in Natal and the Cape Colony, which the advancing Boers required for military purposes.
At this stage the company’s principal function was to support the war effort. Kruger and Leyds had much to be proud of. The concession awarded to the company in August 1884, which they had subsequently fought to retain, proved to be a long-term investment with the best possible return. Since 1895 the company had been a massive contributor to the Transvaal treasury. After the Jameson Raid it had played an important part in building up the Republic’s substantial arsenal. And now, its new director since late 1898, J.A. Kretschmar van Veen, was dedicating its facilities and services to the Transvaal’s war effort.
He was obliged to do so under article 22 of the concession, which provided that ‘in times of war or in the event of internal unrest the Government may take control of the railway and everything required to operate it, for defence purposes or in the interests of public order, and may wholly or partly suspend regular traffic, subject to payment of compensation to the concessionary’. On 29 September 1899 the Volksraad had decided to invoke that provision. From then on, the Netherlands-South African Railway Company came under the control of the military authorities and functioned as the Boer forces’ railways division. It provided transport for Boer commandos, British prisoners of war, war casualties, horses, mules, oxen, wagons, guns, munitions and supplies of every kind. The company’s staff also repaired and guarded bridges and crossings in Natal and the Cape Colony that retreating British troops had destroyed. In addition, its management offered favourable terms to any of its employees who wanted to join the Hollander Corps or any of the Boer commandos.
But Kretschmar van Veen did far more than was formally required by article 22, and even that, he felt, wasn’t sufficient. He saw the concession as more than just a business contract. It represented the trust placed in him by the Transvaal government. ‘We have a moral obligation in all circumstances to merit that trust... We are a Dutch company and we are in business to make money, but what we possess is a Transvaal railway. The first can be neutral, the second cannot.’ Inspired by his belief, he also put the company’s central workshop in Pretoria at the army’s disposal. There, besides building hospital trains they also cast horseshoes, produced munitions and even repaired and assembled artillery, complete with mounts.37
This kind of loyalty and commitment obviously couldn’t be expected of the mining industry. The most vehement opponents of the Kruger regime were to be found in and around Johannesburg: the mine owners, frustrated by the oppressive monopolies, and the Uitlanders, deprived of political rights. One didn’t need to agree with the British Liberal parliamentarian James Duckworth—‘If the Rand had been a potato field, there would have been no war’—to appreciate the extent of the gold industry’s impact on the Transvaal, if only on its demographics and its social and cultural life. Because of it Johannesburg had evolved into a dynamic centre of business and finance. It was the fastest-growing city in the world, where population figures rose and fell to the rhythm of the stock market, where life itself was in a rush. English was the lingua franca, the majority of the white population originated from and maintained ties with Great Britain, while many had links with Cape Town and London. In short, the enemy.
This was a serious problem for the Boer leaders. Johannesburg was a breeding ground for conspirators, a potential fifth column, within 50 kilometres of Pretoria. Deporting them all would cripple the goldfields and deprive the Boers of the revenue they needed to fight the war. Leaving them where they were would be a considerable security risk.
By and large, the problem resolved itself. As from June 1899 it was clear that people were apprehensive and many were starting to leave the mining areas. Political tensions were mounting—the talks between Milner and Kruger in Bloemfontein collapsed early that month—and everyone could see they were preparing for war. A large fort was being built on the crest of Hospital Hill, in central Johannesburg, and at this point it was nearing completion. It formed part of the fortifications the government had decided to build after the Jameson Raid. The fort was intended as a defence against attacks from outside, but it also served—intentionally—as a warning to the local population. Unfortunately, it was more effective in that respect than the authorities had expected. Rumours spread like wildfire among the Uitlanders. The Boers were going to bomb the mines from the fort. They were going to send foreigners to the front to form a human shield. They were going to stand by while unemployed black miners plundered the city. They were going to starve them to death.
These anxieties triggered a migration. September saw an exodus, early October a frenzied flight, in goods wagons filled to the gunnels. The Boer leaders in Pretoria tried in vain to stem the flow. Even they didn’t want the entire population to run off, especially not the educated, white working community. They assured the mine owners there was nothing to fear as long as the mines continued to operate. For most, this came too late. Even the promise of generous bonuses for experienced personnel fell on deaf ears. Mines closed down, one after the other. Between June and mid-October 1899 an estimated 100,000 whites and as many Africans, coloureds and Asians left the Rand.
The mining areas didn’t die out completely. About 20,000 whites and 15,000 Africans stayed on, just enough to keep at least a few mines running, which was exactly what the Transvaal government wanted. Towards the end of September the Executive Council, with the Volksraad’s approval, passed a number of resolutions in anticipation of a state of emergency. Mine owners who wanted to continue operating were obliged to obtain work permits for their employees. Mine workers had to take an oath of obedience and good conduct. Gold yields were to be handed over to the government in Pretoria for safekeeping. The government would mint and supply sufficient coins to cover the mine owners’ costs and would refund the balance when the war ended. Mines that suspended production could be taken over by the state, either temporarily or permanently. A Peace and Order Commission was installed, chaired by the commissioner of peace D.E. Schutte. Alcohol was prohibited, travel permits became mandatory. British citizens without a work or residence permit were deported.38
In early October, with the war imminent, the Transvaal government compiled an inventory of abandoned mines. There were 66 in all. How could they make the most profit with the smallest possible workforce? When war broke out, they soon reached a decision. The three most promising mines, the Robinson, the Bonanza and the Ferreira Deep, were taken over by the state right away. The Rose Deep followed in November. The eight privately owned mines that continued to operate were placed under the supervision of an inspector.
Even before the war broke out, Pretoria had introduced a far more direct method to supplement its gold reserve, namely confiscation. On 2 October, by order of the state attorney, Jan Smuts, a consignment of gold worth more than £400,000, en route by train from Johannesburg to Cape Town, was intercepted at the Transvaal border. A week later Smuts sent police officers to empty the gold vaults of Johannesburg’s banks. As of 11 October goods and services of all kinds could be requisitioned. The state-controlled gold mines flourished as a result. The Boers seized dynamite, potassium cyanide and whatever else they needed. They extracted gold only from the layers of rock containing the highest concentrations, with no thought for the prospects of the mining industry in future. They slashed the wages of the black workforce.
All these measures were permissible under the state of emergency. Labour was declared one of the services that could be lawfully requisitioned. It was to be deployed according to new regulations based on nationality, education and skin colour. Burghers were called up for commando service on the front. Uitlanders who wanted to remain in the Transvaal were obliged to obtain work permits; those with special skills were awarded bonuses. This largesse was something the black miners couldn’t even dream of. For them the approaching war meant loss of income, an uncertain future and expulsion from the Transvaal; the war itself brought the prospect of forced labour. The thousands of Africans who found themselves without work or food after the mass closure of mines in September and early October received no assistance from their former employers. Many of them had been recruited from the coastal regions of Mozambique, Zululand and Natal, and were left to make their own way home. They needed special passes to travel, but with their numbers steadily increasing they became a threat to public order. The authorities responded by relaxing controls, bundling them into goods trucks and shunting them off in droves. If there wasn’t space for them in the trains to Lourenço Marques, they were sent south.
Trains were being deployed for military transports and many of these miners were unable to travel at all. In early October, an estimated 7000 men from Zululand found themselves stranded in Johannesburg. Rather than leave them waiting for trains to become available, John Marwick of the Native Affairs Department in Natal obtained permission from the authorities to escort them home on foot. The men set off in an orderly column, 30 abreast, singing traditional Zulu songs. They covered more than 50 kilometres a day. Initially they were provided with food and places to rest. Seven days after leaving Johannesburg they limped into northern Natal, famished and exhausted, only to face another ordeal. They were intercepted by Boer fighters, who commandeered a few hundred men to haul their guns up a hill. Only once they had done so were they able to complete their march home.
Those who undertook the journey had only this one experience of forced labour. The men left behind were subjected to it every day of the whole war. They could either keep their jobs on the mines, mostly working longer hours for less pay, or, like all other Africans in the Transvaal, work on the land or as servants of the Boer commandos.39
Although the authorities in Pretoria enforced rigorous security measures in vital sectors like the railways and the mining industry, these precautions didn’t extend to their surveillance of British prisoners of war. Churchill’s escape from prison, daring as it may have been, was made possible by an amateurish prison regime. Scaling a fence was hardly a Houdini-like feat. The authorities hadn’t reckoned on such large numbers of prisoners and had underestimated their determination. Churchill’s escape turned the whole of Pretoria upside down.
As Haldane and Brockie had anticipated, his disappearance was discovered early the following morning, causing a great deal of commotion. No one could figure out how he had done it and speculation was rife. Some said he’d escaped in a rubbish bin, or disguised as a woman; he was lying low somewhere in town, or had he already been recaptured in Waterval Boven? Homes were searched, a couple of Zarps were sent to the front in disgrace, a few ‘suspect’ Englishmen were thrown out of the country. The Boer leaders felt betrayed, Commandant-General Joubert most of all. He had sent his telegram approving Churchill’s release only days before. The affair should be made public, he insisted to the state secretary, Reitz, ‘to show the world what a villain he is’. A photograph of the fugitive, along with a personal description, was pasted on the wall of the government building. Beside it was a ‘Dead or Alive’ poster. Churchill had a price of £25 on his head.
Prison security was tightened, more sentries were employed, some to patrol the garden next door. Alcohol was prohibited, sleeping on the veranda became a thing of the past, no more newspapers for inmates, and roll call twice a day. It was especially hard on Haldane and Brockie, whose hopes of escaping had gone up in smoke. Churchill’s impatience had led to a great deal of frustration in the prison and beyond, and the incident was never forgotten. The legend that he had broken his word and betrayed his friends was an understandable emotional reaction, but it wasn’t actually true. Even so, it hounded Churchill for the rest of his life.40
Churchill himself was oblivious to all the upheaval. He had other things on his mind in his underground lair. He felt claustrophobic and hated being confined again, this time on his own, in total darkness and in a silence broken only by an unnerving pitter-patter. Howard listened sympathetically when Churchill told him this during his next visit, and on the night of Friday 15 December he escorted him to the surface. A stroll on the veld and a breath of fresh air lifted Churchill’s spirits. Howard realised it would be better for his health and state of mind to remain above ground. At the back of the mine office was an unused storage room. It would be reasonably safe.
And so it was, for as long as it lasted. But at some stage he would have to move on. Churchill still believed he would manage with a horse, a pistol, an escort and some food, but Howard disagreed. He proposed an alternative which he had already discussed with a local merchant, Charles Burnham, another Englishman who was prepared to take risks to help a fellow countryman. Burnham was about to send a consignment of wool to Lourenço Marques for shipment abroad. There was enough to fill a couple of railway wagons, with sufficient space left over for Churchill to hide among the bales. This was the plan.
It took a couple of days to make the arrangements. On the night of Monday 18 December they were ready. The wool had been loaded and covered with sailcloth, and a space had been cleared for Churchill on the floor of one of the wagons. He packed a loaf of bread, a melon, two roast chickens, three flasks of cold tea, some whiskey and a pistol—but no cigars, for obvious reasons. They expected the journey to take 16 hours at most, although in wartime one always had to be prepared for delays. At the last minute, Burnham decided to accompany Churchill, just to be on the safe side.
It turned out to be a good move. The journey was not as uneventful as they had hoped. In Witbank, soon after they set off, Burnham parted with a couple of ‘Christmas gifts’ to have the wagons coupled to an ongoing passenger train. A few generous shots of whiskey persuaded the guard to cooperate. He used the same ruse in Waterval Onder, where—after a whole night’s wait—their wagons were joined to another train. And in Kaapmuiden, the last station before the Mozambique border, Burnham managed to prevent a Boer commando from searching Churchill’s wagon. This time, it was coffee that did the trick. After that, crossing the border at Komatipoort was easy. The customs officer allowed the consignment to pass without being inspected, but the Portuguese authorities were more difficult. They demanded that the wagons be uncoupled from the passenger train, which held them up for several hours, until the next goods train arrived.
All that time—it was already Thursday 21 December—the wagons had been in Portuguese territory, but Churchill was still on edge. He thought he heard people speaking Dutch and was desperate not to be caught at the last minute. He only calmed down when the train set off again and arrived at the next station. Through a chink in the wall he saw Portuguese uniforms and a signboard indicating that they had arrived in Ressano Garcia. Once they had passed the station, he gave vent to his excitement. He peered out, emerged from the sailcloth and sang, roared, crowed with delight. Free at last. He drew his pistol and fired two, three shots in the air.41