John Buchan

“ The Staats Model School was a single-storied red brick building with a slated veranda, and consisted of twelve class-rooms, a large lecture-hall, and a gymnasium. The playground in which it stood was about 120 yards square, and in it there were tents for the guards, the cookhouse, and a bathing-shed. On two sides it was surrounded by an iron grill, and on the other two by a corrugated iron fence some 10 feet high. Before the prisoners from the armoured train arrived there were already sixty British officers there, captured in the early Natal fighting. ”

“ Churchill has observed in his book, the presence of so many millionaires in the country had raised the tariff too high for any ordinary purse. Another difficulty was where to go to. It was no good attempting to reach Natal or Cape Colony, for that meant going through Boer armies. The best chance lay eastward in the direction of Portuguese territory, but that involved a journey of 300 miles through an unknown country. The one hope was the Delagoa Bay line, for where there is a railway there are always chances of transport for a bold man. ”

“ As it happened, the Pretoria Government had wired to Komati Poort to order the strictest search of all goods trucks. The stowaways heard the unloosening of the ropes of their tarpaulin, and down in their tunnel realized it had been lifted up and thrown back. They saw daylight flood in at the tunnel end, and believed that at any moment the face of a station official would look down on them. Then to their amazement the tarpaulin was returned to its place. They may not have been seen ”

“ They had 300 miles of a difficult journey to make to safety, and surely never in the history of escapes have three men started out on a wilder enterprise in worse physical condition. Mr. Churchill had been out of training, but his physique at the time was that of an athlete's compared to Captain Haldane and his companions. Brockie, who had lived in the country and knew the language, got himself up like a wounded Boer, with his left arm in a sling and the Boer colours round his head. ”

“ Mr. Churchill published the story of his escape during the war, when it was important not to implicate any friends still in the Transvaal, and so the next part of his journey has never been explicitly told. It appears that he fell in with a Mr. Burnham and a Mr. Howard, officials of a colliery, who gave him valuable assistance, as they were afterwards to assist Captain Haldane. On the fifth day after leaving Pretoria he reached Middelburg, where it was arranged that he should try and board a Delagoa Bay train. ”

“ At 2.30 p.m. they were attached to a passenger train, and for the rest of the day jogged across the high veld, till at Waterval Boven, where the descent to the low veld begins, the train drew up for the night. They started again next morning, and presently they reached the last Transvaal station, Komati Poort, where a bridge spans the Komati river. This was the place where a search was likely, and to the intense disappointment of the fugitives they found the truck detached and pushed into a siding. Discovery seemed now certain, and Haldane decided to try and bribe the first comer. ”

“ Brockie had also escaped, but all three paid for some time the penalty of their wild adventure with malaria, and in the case of Le Mesurier with enteric. In a few weeks, however, they were back on duty at the front. Captain Haldane, as we have seen, was to rise to be one of the most successful British generals in the Great War. Brockie was killed by a mining accident a few years later after the escape. Le Mesurier fell at the Second Battle of Ypres, and Frankland, who had assisted them to escape, died in a reconnaissance at the Dardanelles. ”

“ Churchill was back again in Natal with the British Army.
III We return to Captain Haldane and his friends, who had been meditating escape from the first day of their arrival at the Staats Model School. The difficulty was, of course, the guards, and Mr. Churchill's exploit made the Boer Government redouble its vigilance. It was found impossible to bribe the sentries; a plan for a rising of the prisoners was soon given up; and the scheme of sinking a shaft and then tunnelling to an adjacent kitchen garden proved impracticable, since the diggers very soon struck water. ”

“ For guard there were twenty-seven men and three corporals of the South African Republic Police (known locally as "Zarps") . These furnished nine sentries in reliefs of four hours; they stood 50 yards apart, well armed with revolvers and rifles. ”