• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

'I saw your wife at Chrissie Meer,' the woman said quietly. 'And aren't you Van Doorn? I saw your son and daughter.'

There was a long silence as the two men looked at this fearless woman, and finally De Groot asked, 'Are you the woman of the camps?'

'I am Maud Turner Saltwood.'

Both of the Boers spoke at once: 'The traitor?'

'The man who quit Lord Kitchener because he could not tolerate the camps.'

'You are that lady?' De Groot asked again. When she nodded, he hesitated, then wheeled his horse about and led his men, still with their flaming brands, away from the farm. He rode farther south for two days, but during that time he began to realize the futility of attempting to reach the Indian Ocean; from three directions young Boer scouts reported the presence of enemy troops, and Micah Nxumalo, who had gone in the direction of Grahamstown, said that a force of English and Cape colonials were massing there. At dawn on the third day De Groot told his commando, 'We could never get to Port Elizabeth. Let's go home.'

They left behind them a flame of glory and wonder, the commando that almost reached the sea, the men from the tiny town of Venloo who rode through the heartland of the conqueror and then turned back, untouched by the four hundred thousand who searched for them.

When Maud Saltwood returned to Chrissie Meer to complete her documentation on the concentration camps, she wanted to examine, as dispassionately as possible, the actual conditions, and she sought out Sybilla de Groot, knowing her to be a sensible woman. But she found her so emaciated from dysentery that she wondered how she could stand, let alone converse intelligently.

'Was Frank Saltwood a spy?' the old woman asked.

'We've never discussed it.'

'We know that Lord Kitchener's a monster.'

'He's not a monster. He's a foolish, bullheaded man who has no heart. Now we must get you some medicine.'

'There is none,' the old woman said, and she was right. The English could bring into this tight area four hundred and forty-eight thousand soldiers, but they could not find space in their ships for the extra medicines and food needed to save emaciated women and children. They could import a hundred thousand horses for their cavalry, but not three cows for their concentration camps. Guns bigger than houses they could haul in, but no hospital equipment. It was insane; it was horrifying; and in her news reports Maud Saltwood said so.

'That woman should be shot' was Lord Kitchener's sober evaluation of the affair. Many members of Parliament felt the same way, and her husband's cousin, Sir Victor, kept a low profile, for she had besmirched his name. But on she went, one woman exposing to the world the monstrous wrong of these camps. In Cape Town many English families stopped speaking to her husband, while others commiserated with him over his wife's misconduct, not realizing that he supported her enthusiastically. His income, which she spent lavishly, kept alive some three hundred women who would otherwise have perished, and for this he would be forever grateful to his vigorous wife.

While Kitchener raged, Maud quietly continued interrogating women at Chrissie Meer, spending much time in the associated camp where blacks were being held. There she talked with women of Micah Nxumalo's family, and they were suffering as sorely as the whites.

'Why we here?' one woman asked plaintively, showing her thin arms.

'Isn't your father fighting with the Boers?' Maud asked.

'Your husband fight with English. They throw you in jail?'

Her most fruitful discussions were with Sybilla de Groot, for the old woman sensed that she would soon die and was eager to have her views spread before the world: 'Like many wrong things, it was all wrong. There should have been no camps.'

'Some say,' Maud argued, 'that the camps were good for you women. They gave you security.'

If Sybilla had been strong, she would have raged and stomped about the little bell tent; she was so weak she had to remain seated, but she did point