Prisoner at Pretoria

Lieutenant A. H. Radice was with the 1^st Battalion Gloucester regiment at the battle of Nicholson’s Nek. He was one of many officers captured at that battle and taken to Pretoria where he spent the next eight months as a prisoner of war housed in the Pretoria Model School, a prison for British Officers. Confined in the same prison were the officers captured at the Chieveley Train disaster, Captain Haldane and Lieutenant Frankland and Winston Churchill.

Lieutenant Radice kept a diary of his stay in the Model School sections of which he wrote in a code the key to which was known only to him. I had the privilege to meet his daughter when I visited the Gloucester regimental museum in December 2001. Ms Radice explained that it was not until she was co-opted as a code breaker during WW2 that she managed to decipher her father’s diary. In the page shown above Lieutenant Radice has applied his code to hide the fact that Winston Churchill had escaped. Unfortunately Churchill on his return to Durban made public the method by which he escaped thus making it impossible for further escapes to be made from the Model School prison. This did not endear Churchill to those still planning to escape.

 

***

The following article was written by Lieutenant Radice on his return to the UK after the Boer War

 

In the last number of “Black Badge” I related the events which led to the disaster near Nicholson’s Nek and the arrival of the prisoners captured there at the Pretoria racecorse.

 

After a few days the officers were transferred to the Staat’s model School which had been officers who had been so far captured by the Boers. Of these twelve, belonging to

the 18^th Hussars and the Mounted Infantrv detachments of the King’s Royal Rifles and Dublin Fusiliers, had been captured at Dundee, a Lieutenant of the Natal Carbineers,

I believe had the distinction of being the first officer captured during the war. The Nicholson’s Nek prisoners included 5 Officers of the IOth Mountain Battery, 19 of the

Gloucestershire Regiment, 12 of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, and one staff officer. These numbers do not include wounded officers and those who were lodged in the jail, the

fate of nearly all the Colonials who were so unfortunate as to be captured. The Rev. Hoffmeyer, a loyalist minister, was at this time in the jail confined with Negro

malefactors, later he was allowed to join us in the Model School as his health was suffering.

 

The School was a long single story red brick building standing on a corner plot in the residential quarter of Pretoria. It consisted of a double row of classrooms opening on to

a central passage running the whole length of the building. The two end rooms in each wing were rather larger than the others. At the back was a moderate sized

playground. Breast high railings separated the school from the two adjoining streets and high corrugated iron palings separated the playground from the gardens of the

neighbouring houses. Here we were comparatively comfortably lodged, eight or nine in a room and we were given beds with mattresses and two of those brightly coloured rugs

called Kaffir blankets in South Africa. One of tire larger end rooms was fitted out with long tables and forms and used as a dining room. The corresponding room at the

other end of the building remained empty and was turned into a fives court, opposite it was the school gymnasium in which the apparatus remained. We found this most

useful to keep ourselves fit. Hill, the Adjutant of the 28^th, who had been through a gym course in India, organised a class of physical exercises; some 30 officers turned out

every morning in light attire to be put through the Sandow exercises, the system favoured by the Service at that time. It aimed at developing large, hard muscles by

concentrating the mind on each muscle in turn, while going through the exercises.

A fat little stumpy Field Comet was in charge of the prisoners He knew no word of English Ii was said that he was one of Kruger’s cronies and that he went daily to drink coffee

with the President when he sat on the steep of his official residence. Thus he avoided going to the front. He used to come round very early in the mooting and count us in

our beds; otherwise there were no roll calls or parades. The actual work of administration was done by his secretary, Dr. Gunning, a red headed kindly Hollander who was

both Curator of the state museum and Director of the Pretoria Zoo. He spoke English fluently and was invariably courteous. The one thing that puzzled him was our

optimism as to the result of the war, he could not understand why we were so convinced that the war would end in our favour.

 

The Boers allowed us a ration of bread, meat, tea and potatoes. As this was inadequate a mess committee undertook the thankless task of feeding us on 2/6 a day. In the

early days the cooking was very indifferent. It was done by a Kaflir who had only a rudimentary knowledge of the art which he had probably picked up in mining camps. He

did his worst with inadequate implements in a small shed at the back of the school building. After Sanna’s Post, where the baggage of the Cavalry Brigade was ambushed

and several of their cooks captured by the Beers, we fared much better as a couple of officers’ mess cooks were induced to come and cook for us.

We were also allowed to start a “shop” through which we could buy almost anything we wished from the Pretoria shops. At first Grimshaw of the Dublin Fusiliers very kindly

took charge of it, but later HH Smith of the 28^th took charge and as the number of prisoners increased this entailed a good deal of work daily. Prices were exorbitant even

or South Africa where the lowest coin in circulation was the three-penny bit. We thought the shops were profiteering, unfortunately it was a matter of paying or doing without.

 

However, the real culprit was discovered by chance. A tray of cakes was brought in one day and under one them was found the baker’s bill. The prices charged were just half

what we had been paying. The fat Field Cornet was pocketing a hundred per cent commission. There was of course no redress.

At first money was a difficulty; some of us had small reserves, others had been relieved of their cash when captured. But the local bank was induced to cash our cheques, up

to ten pounds endorsed by our commanding officers.

Besides bedding the Boers issued each of us with a suit of civilian clothes, but no hats. It is surprising that they Did so for these three concessions that is the suit of clothes,

money and the “shop” certainly made it easier for anyone who succeeded in evading our immediate guards to get right away. Through the “shop” it became possible to

accumulate a small store of portable food such as biscuits, chocolate, biltong (strips of dried buck’s flesh). Some people also grew beards so as to look as far as possible   

like Boers. Our immediate guard consisted of thirty military police who lived in tents pitched on the southern half of the playground. They are called Zarps from their collar

badges formed of the initials of the name of their corps. They were armed with rifle and revolver. Mounted guard was monotonous work but it was better than being sent to

the front. Despite their vigilance and the profusion of electric lights there was one possible avenue of escape. On the far side of the playground, in the middle of the fence,

were the school lavatories flanked at each end by circular iron buildings with flat roofs, the centre portion open to the sky. By climbing through this hole, lying flat on the roof

of the left hand one it was possible to drop over into the next garden without being seen by any of the sentries. This was demonstrated by two of the batmen breaking out

this way, but, as they were in uniform, they were seen and captured on the outskirts of the town and lodged in the jail. In our room we were six subalterns of the 28^th,

Temple, Breul, Hill, Short, Beasley and myself besides Gallway of Natal Carbineers. We swore the Carbineer to secrecy and began making preparation for escaping The route  

Through the lavatories was discovered, the habits of the sentries had to be carefully studied at all times of day and night; it was necessary to find out ii the if the next door

garden was patrolled.

 

Food had to be ordered through the “shop.” in very small quantities at a time so as not to arouse suspicions. Civilian clothing was eventually issued to u. Hats were much

more difficult to obtain. Information as to trains was necessary. Eventually we found out that a train left Pretoria for Delgoa Bay at about ten at night and that a short

distance out it had to climb a steep gradient. It would Therefore be necessary to get out as soon as it was dark and try to reach the gradient by ten o’clock. While these

preparations were under war the Natal armoured train was ambushed by the Boers near Blaukranz on November 15^th, some of the trucks were derailed and its garrison

captured after a fight. Including Captain Haldane Gordon Highlanders, Lieut. Frankland Royal Dublin Fusiliers, and Mr. Winston Churchill war correspondent of the Morning

Post, a passenger on the train. On the way to Pretoria the party was joined by Sergeant-Major Brockie of the Imperial Light Horse who had been captured a day or two before

and posed as an officer, because the Boers were Particularly bitter against that corps, as it was composed mainly of Johannesburgers who had got awav before the

Outbreak of war.

 

The arrival of this party, although we did not suspect it at the time was to prevent any officer of the 28^th from making a successful attempt at escape. In the early days of

our captivity we only obtained news of the progress of the war from newly captured prisoners who came to join us in the Model School. Generally their news was very scanty

and confined to the happening in the immediate neighbourhood of their corps. We were, indeed, allowed to purchase the local paper but the news given was so obviously

faked that no reliance could be placed in it. It usually consisted in the announcement of engagements in which the British troops had suffered hundreds of casualties while

the Boer casualties were said to be one or two mules wounded! However our news service soon improved. At first the inhabitants of Pretoria were allowed to pass freely along

the roads bordering the school and many of Would come and stare at us, little boys on bicycles would come to look at the new denizens of their school, on Sunday

numbers stood in groups and even try to take snapshots. One regular visitor was a red-headed little man who daily passed close to our railing swinging his stick and was

invariably followed by a large yellow dog. In passing, without glancing at any of us he would murmur a few words in English such as “ Cheer up boys” “Good news.” He

appeared friendly, he was nicknamed the “Dog Man.” and from him we received many welcome scraps of news. Later we found his name was Patterson and that he was an

official in the Pretoria telegraphs. Presently the road in front of the school was closed to the public but Patterson would not be defeated. On the other side of the road were

several bungalows, in one opposite the school lived an English family called Cunningham, which consisted of father, a music master, mother, and two daughters. Patterson

taught the Morse alphabet to the daughters and these very cleverly contrived to signal to us the news Patterson supplied them with, without the sentries ever suspecting what

was going on. The Cunningham’s bungalow was surrounded by a verandah, the front door opened into a passage at the end of which doors led into rooms on either side.

When the front door was open could see straight down the passage from the windows in the gym. One of the girls would stand at the end of the passage signal with a small

white flag while the other would stand the verandah just clear of the door. If one of the sentries approached the front of the house she would give the alarm by quietly

walking in at the front door, the other would at once hide the little flag and disappear into one of the rooms. On our side by standing back in the gym one could read the

signals without being seen by any of the sentries.

 

One afternoon the whole show was very nearly given away, by young Kinahan of the R Irish Rifles. He happened to be standing with others outside by the railing immediately

opposite tile Cunningham bungalow, just as a message was being signalled. Looking up his eye was caught by the waving flag in the passage. He stared for a moment then

the surprise was too much for Irish temperament and he almost shouted pointing: “Great Scott, there’s somebody signalling.” He was promptly suppressed, but it had been

a narrow squeak, a sentry was only a few yards away. Fortunately his suspicions were not aroused else it would have gone badly for the Cunningham’s. At least they would

have been put over the border. When Lord Roberts occupied Pretoria he called personally the Cunningham’s as well as Patterson, and thanked them for what they had done

for the prisoners. To hark back to the armoured train, Winston Churchill had scarcely set foot in the School than he began to move heaven and earth to be released on the

grounds that as newspaper correspondent he was a non-combatant and not liable to be interned. On the other hand the Boers argued that he had taken an active in the

defence of the train and had been instrumental in getting the engine away and besides thought that the son of a Peer would have a certain value to bargain with when the

time came. Churchill knowing that Haldane and Brockie were planning to escape at the first opportunity asked to go with them. They reluctantly relented knowing that it

would diminish their chances of getting away, as Churchill was bound to be missed at once. Their plan was to climb over the corrugated iron fence at a spot near the

lavatories where the trees threw a dark shadow. As the spot could be seen by the sentries, to climb over the fence it would be necessary to chose a moment when his back

was turned. Assembling in the garden just over the fence they intended making for the Delagoa Bay railway and board a train if possible. 

 

December 12^th was chosen fur the attempt, Churchill did not come in to supper and managed to get over the fence without being seen. A little later, when Haldane and

Brockie tried to follow, the sentries appeared to have become suspicious and the attempt had to be given up, nevertheless they managed to warn Churchill who was still

outside.

 

Churchill’s story of how he made his way to Balmoral and got the manager of a coal mine to help him over the frontier into Portuguese East Africa has been published and

has no place here.

 

Next morning when our Field Comet made his inspection Churchill’s bed seemed to be occupied and his suspicions Were not aroused but, later, the barber who had been

coming in daily to Churchill, arrived, several people attempted to Make him go away, but he would nut be put off. After waiting a few minutes he went to report that his

customer was not to be found. Then the excitement began, there was a roll call. Malan, an ill-tempered man, Commandant of Pretoria, Arrived and made a virulent speech

calling us names. The building was minutely searched, but no cine was found and eventually things simmered down.

Churchill, on reaching Lourenco Marques, thoughtless of the two originators of the plan by which he profited, and of All the others he had left languishing in Pretoria,

disclosed the manner of his evasion with the result that, a few days Later workmen arrived at the school and the fence on the southern side of playground was moved

several yards back so as to run clear behind the lavatories and additional sentries posted, thus making impossible to break out of that side.

A more surprising consequence of Churchill’s escape was that the Church of England chaplain in Pretoria, who, on Sundays, had been conducting a service in our mess room,

found it necessary to Colonel Hunt (the senior officer in the School) that as we had connived at Churchill’s escape, by which act he had dishonourably broken his parole and

he could no longer come and hold services in the school! We did not see him again, but when our troops marched into Pretoria the matter was taken up by Lord Robert’s

chaplain.

 

One would have thought that time would have hung heavily on our hands, but I think that most of us managed to find some occupation most of the time. Washing clothes

took some time, not being experts at it, and having to wait one’s turn for a bucket. The few batmen we had with us had little time to spare after they helped to prepare our

food, washed up the crockery and cleaned our rooms etc. We wrote a good many letters and they seemed to reach their destination l with little delay although carefully

Censored. One senior officer became rather unpopular, having obtained a typewriter he would write all his letters with it and particularly at the time of the afternoon siesta.

Much time was given to reading was as we were allowed to subscribe to the Pretoria library and to take out almost any hook we liked. Chess became very popular,

tournaments were played, and some officers attained considerable skill at it. One expert played ten simultaneous games and managed to win a good number of them. 2^nd

Lieut. Mackenzie specialised in playing blindfold and after some practice could hold his own against most of the other players without ever looking the board. Cards were very

popular at one time. In our room we played cards and dominoes regularly for matches, we used to bid for the lead and lead any card in the hand. On one occasion two of

the players were dealt exceptionally good hands and the bidding went up to five pounds worth of matches. I have forgotten how many gross of boxes that represented.

 

Keeping fit was a little more difficult; after afternoon tea a regular procession of officers would walk round and round the school buildings but at almost anytime of day someone would be walking round the course. I don’t remember how many rounds were supposed to go to the mile, incredible distances were covered in this way and it was whispered that one energetic officer did twenty miles every day. I wonder if afterwards he was ever able to walk straight without turning the first corner he came to. The fives court was almost continually in use. The younger officers tried playing tip and rounders in the playground but with indifferent success; the ball would get hit amongst the tents of the Zarps where we were forbidden to go, and it was not always easy to induce the surly Zarps to return it.

 

I think it was Hill who started the idea of decorating the walls of our rooms and I think we all took a hand in it. On one wall we drew a large may of Natal, as we had only a small scale map out n atlas to go by it cannot have been very accurate, next we drew on the opposite wall a map of the Transvaal. These drawings e since been varnished and I believe have been preserved to this day. In other rooms the walls were decorated with caricatures a striking one represented ” Oom Pard ” being chased by Lord Roberts with a drawn sword. I do not know if it was Preserved.

 

Our rooms were very badly lighted at night, and there really nowhere one could read with any comfort. It was a real

grievance, that outside where we were not allowed to go after dark, the place was brilliantly lighted, while in our rooms there

was only one miserable electric bulb hung rather high in the middle of the room. Despite our complaints no improvement was ever made, therefore we had to help ourselves. In a corner of our room was a cupboard containing the physical equipment of the school. This we opened and with the material we found inside were able to rig up electric lights at the head of each of our beds, including switches and thus read while lying on our beds.

 

Our first plan fur escaping having become impracticable we turned our attention to tunnelling. In the floor of our room there was a trapdoor which was screwed down, this we opened and found underneath an air space some two to three feet high running the whole length of the building with partition walls corresponding to the walls between the rooms above. In some of these there were narrow openings so that one could get into the space below other rooms besides our own. This we thought we would use to dispose of the spoil from our tunnel. We had heard that the underground water level was very near the surface but we meant to find out for ourselves if it was really so. The first thing to do was to arrange the trapdoor so as to disguise the fact that it had been opened and arrange a system of signalling, tell off shifts and start work. We were fairly well off for tools having got the head of a pick and various other bits of iron. The ground was very hard and progress slow with our inadequate tools and the difficulty of working noiselessly in a very confined space. We started by sinking a shaft, but we had not got more than about four feet down when got to water. We tried bailing, but of course it was hopeless, our second attempt had come to nothing.

 

Presently a much more ambitious plan was discussed by the senior officers. The main idea was to short-circuit the electric cables which were attached to the gable of the school. This would put out all the lights and might cause damage at the generating station. As tile lights went out the tents of the Zarps would rushed, their arms seized, and the sentries dealt with. Having broken out, the Pretoria armoury was to be seized as well as the two southern forts, then the men were to be released and armed. The principal objections to the scheme was that we were unable to find out if there were any arms and ammunition left in the armourv with which to arm the men, and that the capture of Pretoria would have very little if any effect on the fighting efficiency of commandos.

In this connection it is interesting to note than when Lord Roberts captured Pretoria and the bulk of the prisoners were released very few Mausers could be collected to rm them with, most of them were armed with Martinis firing black powder.

 

By February tile available accommodation in tire school had been taken up and arrangement began to be made to find other quarters for us outside the town and soon contradictory rumours as to the date of the move began flying about. Our previous plans for escape having come to nothing we determined, when the move took place to hide under the floor and when the excitement had down to walk out and make for one of the frontiers.

To make the story more intelligible I must mention certain happenings which I only learnt years later. Ever since his first attempt at escape had failed, Haldane had been secretly making other plans. Brockie was still of the party and Lieut. Le Mesurier of the Dublin Fusiliers had taken the place of Churchill. The idea was to cut the electric light wires and in the sudden darkness make a dash for it. After one abortive attempt the lights actually did go out a few days later and remained out all night. But as a report had come in that we were to move to new quarters in a couple of days time the escape party decided to go to ground and hid under the floor of the room.

 

There was great excitement next day and the whole building was searched without result. Some of us had our suspicions but only two or three actuallv knew what had happened.

 

Unfortunately for the escape party our move did not actually take place until March 16th, eighteen days later. We, the six subalterns of the 28th were again obliged to abandon our projected attempt to escape. Haldane disclosed his hiding place to Colonel Hunt and asked him to prevent others from hiding under the floor as the sudden disappearance of several officers without the lights going out would jeopardise their chances of getting away. We could do no less than fall in with Haldane’s wishes after all they had gone trough and meekly move to our new quarters with the others.

The same evening the three emerged from their hiding place succeeded in reaching Portuguese territory and thence returned to Natal. Brockie got lost on the way and it is not known what became of him.

 

We all drove in cabs to our new quarters, a large corrugated iron hut painted white and surrounded by what the old engineering manuals called a high barbed wire entanglement. It was pleasantly situated on the slope of a hill about a mile north of the town. Below us to the south a mass of trees hid nearly the whole of Pretoria with the exception of the rounded roofs of the Radhous. Beyond rose two hills, each crowned by a fort. Between them but out of sight, ran the railway to Johannesburgh and the Orange Free State. Towards the right the view extended over a wide expanse of veldt, along a wide shallow depression between two ranges of low hills. The interior of the hut was divided into two by a wooden partition. In the

larger half our beds were arranged in four rows, the smaller hall was used as a mess room. It was not so comfortable as the Model School but pleasanter being out in the country.

 

The Zarps had gone, they were sent to the front, I believe. Our guards consisted of a Commandant who invariably wore a revolver when he came inside our enclosure. A Vice-Commandant, a Hollander who was manager of an Ideal Milk factory, and a number of men unfit for active service. A rather miserable lot, each armed with a Martini Henry rifle.

 

We very soon settled down in our new quarters to very much to very much the same life we had been leading in our town residence but we missed our news service.

One day the Cunningham girls made a bold attempt to signal to us from a short distance down the hill, but they were spotted almost at once by our guards and warned off.

Our batman acquired somehow a small monkey which was chained to a pole and gave us a deal of amusement. Once it got loose and climbing on to the corrugated iron roof of our hut had great fun running up and down trailing its chain; to the people inside it sounded like a runaway railway train. The remarkable thing was that the monkey got loose every morning just about hale an hour before breakfast; it acted as a very effective reveille.

 

Time passed and although news was scarce the paper could not conceal that the engagements reported drew nearer and nearer to Pretoria. More attempts at escape were made but unsuccessfully. The first time the lights duly went out but something went wrong and they came on again before anyone had got to the wire entanglement. The second time the lights were successfully extinguished, some of the sentries let off their rifles and emergency lights were brought out at once and

placed round the perimeter. The shooting had been very wild and nobody was hit and no one got away.

 

One morning, I think it was the 25th May, as I was reading in the sun something made me listen. It was scarcely a sound. It seemed a mere vibration of the air it was so faint, by listening very intently I was just able to make out a very distant, long drawn out, intermittent murmur. It was not distant thunder it was too regular. Soon everybody was listening to it as if their lives depended on it. It could only be heavy guns a very long way off, it certainly came from the south and could only portend the approach of our troops. It went on for some hours but got no louder and eventually died away. How far had been the guns! What had happened? Had there been a fight? What had been the result? We got no news.

 

Next day and for several days we heard no more, there was no more gun-fire. A few days later a group of some twenty

youngsters with bandoliers full of cartridges and rifles slung across their backs, came riding by going north. They were mounted on wretched little ponies. They stopped to stare at us and talk our guards. Someone tried to question them but got nothing out of them except that they were going north. Were they just a few stragglers or part of tile main forces of the Boers in retreat? Later in the evening some half dozen Boers rode up and had a somewhat excited discussion with the Commandant. The latter presently came in and told us that his visitors wanted us to move to an unknown destination at once. Of course we refused to do any such thing and asked the Commandant to go and tell the so. After some further arguments at the gate, our visitors re off into the darkness vowing they would come back again. There was no further excitement that night. All day the southerly breeze had brought a smell of burning and there was a haze of smoke all over the country, evidently the veldt had been fired, probably to delay Lord Robert’s advance.

 

Next morning I was up early and as I stepped out of the hut the first thing that caught my eye was a tiny cloud above the hills to the south which rapidly grew larger and larger and drifted away. It was the burst of a shell, it was followed by others and even more bursts could be seen all along the ridge. It was most exciting. After all the months of weary waiting we were actually in sight of relief. The question was what was the best course to take! Without arms there was little we could do. If we broke out we could legally be shot as escaping prisoners. Nobody knew what was the situation in Pretoria. With the whole country full of Commandos retreating north there was little chance of getting through them unobserved. Our guards were well disposed towards us but were not quite ready to come to terms. We therefore decided to await events.

There was very little to be seen. Presently we noticed a number of people climbing up to the forts to the south of the town and could be seen on the skyline, standing in groups on every vantage point. They were evidently spectators trying to see what they could of the battle. But our gunners were taking no chances suddenly a puff of smoke appeared over the fort and the crowd came streaming out of the fort and legged it down the hill in record time. Well for them they did so as the fort behind them became enveloped in yellow clouds of bursting cordite.

 

In the afternoon the gun fire died down and we were left without news anxiously looking out for any indication of the result of the action. As a matter of fact the Boers had retired.

 

Next morning, June the 5th, we were thrilled to see, in the distance, one khaki column after another slowly coming down iron the hills to the south west and forming up in the valley, some two miles west of Pretoria.

When our Commandant came into our hut he was surrounded was relieved of his revolver, and was held as hostage. After some discussion our guards agreed to surrender to us. Our batmen changed places with them and we walked out free again after eight months internment.

At two o’clock Lord Roberts, with Kitchener by his side took up his stand in front of the Raad-saal on which the Union

Jack was broken for the first time, and for two hours his troops filed past him. They were dirty, some almost black from having bivouacked on the burnt veldt the night before and having had no water to wash with.

 

A few days later the men interned at Watervaal began to come in. They had been released by the cavalry while under fire of some Boer guns on the hills beyond. But, alas, we looked in vain for our men. They and the Royal Irish Fusiliers had been removed some days earlier.

 

A. H. Radice