Historical note and Acknowledgements
Much of this story is true and some of the characters are real, or based on real people.
While some of the events in Ghosts of the Past took place in real life, I have been a bit creative with historical dates in order to accommodate all of the elements I wanted to squeeze into my story. The battle of Narudas and the plot to kill the real person represented as Cyril Blake actually occurred in 1905 (not 1906, as mentioned in the book). Likewise, the Schützenhaus in Keetmanshoop did not open until 1907, the same year much of the railway line from Lüderitz was built, and the Shark Island concentration camp only began taking in Nama prisoners in 1906. For these reasons I decided to split the difference between the three years over which all these events took place and set Part Two of Ghosts of the Past in 1906.
Here are some of the facts behind this work of fiction:
On September 24, 1905, a real life Australian, 24-year-old Edward Lionel Presgrave, from Hurstville, Sydney, lay dying in the remote desert, south of Klipdam in German South West Africa (modern Namibia), near the border of The Cape Colony (South Africa). Presgrave had been shot in the gut and left to die by one of two Afrikaners, named du Preez or de Waal, who were spying for the Germans. The Germans had put a price on the head of Presgrave, who had been trading guns and horses with the Nama and fighting on their side.
Du Preez reported to the Germans that he had successfully ambushed Presgrave. A patrol under the command of a Lieutenant Beyer, including a military doctor named Erchardt, was dispatched from Klipdam to check on the Australian. Against the odds, they found Presgrave still alive, bleeding from a stomach wound 20 hours after he had been shot. On the orders of Lieutenant Beyer, Presgrave was executed by a Baster (a coloured soldier) named Dirk Campbell.
Back home in Australia Presgrave’s parents tried to have the matter investigated and for those responsible to be held accountable. Perhaps fearful of provoking an international incident over the actions of an upstart colonial, the governments of Australia, Britain, Germany were all, to varying degrees, complicit in sweeping the matter under the carpet.
I have assumed for the purpose of this novel that Berthold von Deimling knew of the plot to kill Presgrave, given that he was the commander of the troops Morengo and Presgrave fought against, even if the order did not come solely or directly from him. I should note here, for the record, that von Deimling became a committed pacifist and a director of the German Peace Society later in life, perhaps due to his experience in German South West Africa and/or later as a General in the First World War.
I based the character of Sergeant Cyril Blake on Edward Lionel Presgrave. Like Blake, Presgrave fought on the British side in the Anglo-Boer War in an irregular unit, though he served with Brabant’s Horse, not Steinaecker’s Horse. For reasons we will never know Presgrave decided to stay on in South Africa after the war, and found ‘work’ in the Cape Colony, making his living as a horse and cattle trader, based in Upington.
Blake’s unit, Steinaecker’s Horse, was real. As portrayed in this novel, they were a colourful band of hunters, poachers, miners and traders who roamed the malaria and lion-infested bushveld on the border of the Transvaal and Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique). It’s said that 10 members of the unit were killed by either lions or crocodiles.
In case you think the ability of Captain Walters to survive a lion attack in this story is fanciful, I should acknowledge here that his actions are based on the true story of how Harry Wolhuter, an early ranger in the Kruger Park area and veteran of Steinaecker’s Horse, fought off and killed a lioness.
I don’t know what Edward Presgrave thought of the war in South Africa, but several accounts I read during my research for this book indicated that many of the Australians who fought against the Boers were uncomfortable with British commander Lord Kitchener’s scorched earth strategy, which included burning farms and interning Boer women and children. Soldiers who had joined the fight full of patriotic fervour, wanting to defend the British Empire, eventually found they probably had more in common with the Afrikaner farmers they were fighting than the British high command running the war.
No one really knows what happened to the gold reserves of the two Boer republics, the Transvaal (South African Republic) and the Orange Free State. However, the legend of ‘Kruger’s Gold’ and its purported whereabouts lives on in South Africa today. Every few years there is a newspaper report of someone claiming to have found part of the haul in a new location.
Claire Martin and Nathaniel Belvedere are fictitious, although it is a fact that many foreigners, including Germans, Dutch, Irish and Americans served on the Boer side during what is now known as the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.
A Confederate engineering officer, Gab Rains, did invent and deploy the ‘sub-terra torpedo’, the precursor of the modern landmine, during the American Civil War, though I have no evidence these heinous weapons were used in the Anglo-Boer War.
Germany supplied many of the weapons used by the Boers, most notably Mauser rifles. Blake’s Mauser C96 Broomhandle semi-automatic pistol was prized by soldiers and officers on both sides of the conflict, including Winston Churchill who reported on the conflict as a British war correspondent.
Jakob Morengo was real and was known as the ‘Black Napoleon’ by his foes, who developed a grudging respect for him. As mentioned in this book he was well educated, multi-lingual, and a man ahead of his time who granted women the right to speak at his council meetings before any other kaptein. Edward Presgrave took part in several engagements, including the battle at Narudas, with Morengo during 1905. I have tried to reflect the sequence of events at Narudas as accurately as possible. Morengo did indeed draw von Deimling and his troops into the Karasberge, by moving his people out of their mat houses before the German attack. He then harried the main German column on its return march to Keetmanshoop. Von Deimling’s two-pronged attack from Warmbad and Keetmanshoop failed in its objective of wiping out Morengo and his supporters; instead the Germans returned to their bases tired and bloodied.
Ironically it was the British, across the border in South Africa, who put an end to Morengo’s effective insurrection against the Germans. At Germany’s behest the British authorities in the Cape arrested Morengo and imprisoned him for a time at Tokai (now known as Polsmor) Prison. Morengo was later released on the condition that he never again cross into German South West Africa. Morengo, however, ignored the terms of his parole and returned to his homeland to continue his fight. On one of his forays back into South Africa he was detected by the British and cornered by a joint British-German force in the southern Kalahari Desert and was killed.
How do I know all this?
I’d like to say I undertook months of painstaking research, trawling archives in South Africa, Germany, Australia and Britain and interviewing descendants of the real people involved in this story, but someone else did all that.
I am enormously indebted to Dr Peter Curson, Emeritus Professor at the Department of Health Systems and Population at Sydney’s Macquarie University, who researched the life, times and untimely death of Edward Presgrave and wrote a non-fiction book of his findings, Border Conflicts in a German African Colony: Jakob Morengo and the Untold Story of Edward Presgrave.
I first came across Edward Presgrave’s story in brief references from two books I read on the history of Namibia while researching one of my earlier novels set in that country, An Empty Coast. He is mentioned in The Kaiser’s Holocaust, Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism, by Casper W. Erichsen and David Olusoga; and A History of Namibia by Marion Wallace and John Kinahan. I remember thinking when I read these books that Presgrave’s story would make a great premise for a novel.
Like me, Peter Curson read those books some time ago and decided to do his own research on Edward Presgrave and write his book about him, which I read. When I started to get serious about researching Ghosts of the Past I contacted Peter and he suggested I write a novel based on Presgrave (which was what I hoped he would say). The rest is history, pun intended. Peter read a draft of the manuscript and provided feedback, for which I am extremely grateful.
I have tried my best in this novel to accurately reflect life and death in the concentration camps of the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa, and during the Herero and Nama wars in German South West Africa. These two conflicts, and in particular what happened to the non-combatants interned in these camps, remain contentious subjects in South Africa and Namibia to this day. I have tried to play a ‘straight bat’ when writing about these emotive subjects, but if I’ve cause offence to anyone by my interpretation of history I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise.
As well as Peter Curson’s book, and those already mentioned, I also benefitted from Steinaecker’s Horsemen by the late William (Bill) Woolmore, and Scorched Earth by Fransjohan Pretorius, a comprehensive analysis of Kitchener’s strategy in the Anglo-Boer War and the British concentration camps.
A number of other people helped with the research and proofreading of Ghosts of the Past.
On his last foray into the desert Edward Presgrave was accompanied by his friend, a Dane by the name of Frode Sahlertz. Frode was taken into custody into by the Afrikaner spies and spent time in a German prison. Via Peter Curson I was able to correspond with Frode’s granddaughter, Lucretia Sahlertz, living in South Africa. I am grateful to her for sharing with me her own knowledge and documents from the time.
My aunt, Sue Park, like the fictitious Nick Eatwell’s aunty Sheila, is passionate about researching our family history and I am grateful to her for explaining the rather complex manner in which Susan Vidler would have been able to track down Nick in Australia.
Thanks, too, to friend, fellow author and horse lover Karly Lane for checking and correcting my references to horses and to horse trainer Gerald Egan for his advice about moving mobs of horses across country.
The wild horses of Namibia still exist, although as mentioned in this story their numbers have decreased in recent years due to drought and predation by hyenas. I have tried to accurately portray their plight, although I must stress that the theory that the horses are descended from mounts released during the war between the Nama and Germany is fictitious. The most commonly accepted theory on the horses’ origin is the one I have also referenced in the novel, that the first horses escaped during the bombing of the South African military camp by a German aircraft in 1915. I am grateful to Christine Swiegers from the Namibia Wild Horses Foundation, based at the lovely Klein-Aus Vista lodge, for answering my questions about the horses.
My good friend in Sydney, psychotherapist Charlotte Stapf, analysed my characters, corrected their behaviours and my German, and gave me some descriptions of Munich – thank you, again.
In South Africa my go-to person for all matters African and Afrikaans, Annelien Oberholzer, once more read and corrected the manuscript. Baie Dankie, my friend.
Firearms expert Fritz Rabe again deserves my thanks, this time for delving into history to make sure my aim was true in relation to firearms and ammunition. Friend and former Army comrade Dave Morley also read the manuscript and I’m grateful to him for his corrections and suggestions, including the reference to sub-terra torpedoes.
I’d also like to thank historian Bruce Gaunson, author of Fighting the Kaiserreich, Australia’s epic within the Great War, for passing on his knowledge of early German military espionage and his suggestions for Claire Martin’s family background.
In Namibia I am particularly grateful to my good friend and the general manager of HitRadio Namibia, Wilfried Hähner, and to my new friend Charl Viljoen, a keen student of German South West Africa’s history, for reading the manuscript, correcting errors and providing feedback.
As I have tried to explain in Ghosts of the Past, while the conflict between Germany and the Herero and Nama peoples is still a matter of debate to this day, Namibia remains a beacon of peace, harmony and stability in a continent often riven by conflict. I urge you to visit this stunningly beautiful and friendly part of the world.
As in most of my books good people have paid good money to great causes to have their names assigned to characters. I’d like to thank the following people and the charities they supported: Claire Martin (via Brett Martin, Friends of Robins Camp, Hwange National Park); Nick Eatwell (via Pete Chilvers, ZANE – Zimbabwe, a National Emergency); Llew Walters (African Icons, in support of widows and orphans of South African Police Service personnel); Scott Dillon (Dine for Rhino/Wild Support/Saving the Survivors); Peter Appleton and Ian Heraud (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation); Susan Vidler (via Melanie Oldland, Heal Africa Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo); the late Pippa Chapman (via Lauren Chapman-Holle, Breaking the Brand – a charity focusing on reducing demand for rhino horn in Vietnam); and Sheila MacKenzie (via Greg Hargrave, Heal Africa Hospital).
In Australia my deepest thanks, as always, go to my unpaid editing team who have been with me for all 23 of my novels and biographies – wife, Nicola; mother, Kathy, and mother-in-law, Sheila. I couldn’t do it without you.
My transnational work family, Pan Macmillan in Australia and South Africa, allows me to continue living my dream in the countries I love. Thank you to Cate Paterson, Danielle Walker, Brianne Collins, Terry Morris, Andrea Nattrass, Gillian Spain, Veronica Napier, Eileen Bezemer and everyone else who helps get a book from my laptop into your hands. I’d also like to thank the late Patricia Paterson, whose support I valued from the very first book, and my fellow Pan Macmillan author Peter Watt for his friendship and promotion of my novels.
And if you’ve made it this far, thank you. You’re the one who counts most.
Tony Park