CHAPTER VII

MARTIAL LAW IN DURBAN

Military Commandant of Durban - Multifarious Duties - Censorship : an Effective Threat - The Spy Trouble - A Boer Agent's Claim for Damages - Contraband Difficulties - The Bundesrath - Guns for General Buller - A Gun Mounting in Fifty-six Hours - Hospital Ships - Mr. Winston Churchill - Relief of Ladysmith - A Letter from Sir Redvers Buller - Farewell to Durban.

WHEN I took over the military commandership of Durban, there was scarcely a man left in the town except those who, by nature of their business in connection with the war, were precluded from going away to fight. The Colony of Natal was loyal to the backbone.

Martial law had been proclaimed a few days before I became Commandant by my predecessor, Colonel Bethune. He had ordered all the native drinking places to be closed at 9.30 p.m., and no one was allowed outside their houses after eleven p.m., unless they had a pass signed by the Commandant. Owing to the absence of my predecessor, this order for the few days it had been in existence had not been very rigidly enforced.

I spoke to the head of the police, and about forty people spent a night in gaol. The next night at a quarter to eleven, I made a tour of the town with Superintendent Alexander. Everybody was on the run, and when eleven o'clock struck,

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the town of Durban was like a city of the dead. These satisfactory conditions continued throughout the period of my command.

The law was very necessary. The number of police was limited, and the town was full of spies and criminals sent down from Pretoria and Johannesburg when war broke out.

The inhabitants were not inconvenienced, as passes were liberally given. On the other hand, burglary and drunken brawls disappeared, and the Magistrate, who generally had a busy time, told me that he had no cases.

One night I was arrested by a policeman - a new hand who did not know me. I had no pass. He said, " You do not look a bad 'un, but my orders are 'No pass, police station,' so come along." At the station I was recognised, so they let me off. I made a note in the charge book commending the constable for doing his duty so well. Superintendent Alexander told me that after this remark I should be well looked after, and I was. Policemen appeared to spring up everywhere with " Halt, your pass, please."

As an office in Durban, I used the Drill Hall, and my staff consisted of Major Bousfield, of the Durban Light Infantry ; Mr. Alexander, Superintendent of the Police ; Captain Frazer, who acted as Press Censor ; Mr. E. H. Brooke, of the Criminal Investigation Department ; Assistant-Paymaster W. F. Cullinan, R.N., who was my secretary, and Mr. R. A. Laycock, clerk, R.N.

Major Bousfield was a barrister with a large practice. Unable to go to the Front with his regiment on account of his health, he determined

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A PRESS CENSORSHIP

to assist in the war somehow or other, and gave up his business to join my staff. He worked from nine in the morning till, very often, twelve at night, and his services were afterwards rewarded with a C.M.G.

Captain Frazer looked after the Press and opened all the letters, from which we derived a great deal of information. Some we re-posted, some we kept, and these I sent on to the Governor, Sir Walter Hely Hutchinson, who was making a collection of them. The language in some of them, especially those from ladies, was shocking. One lady writing from Pretoria to a friend, said that the British prisoners taken outside Ladysmith had just come in, and explained what she would like to do to each British officer.

Orders were given to the Press that all matter relating to the war must go to the Censor. The editor of one of the Durban papers called on me and asked what would happen if they put in something without the Censor passing it. I explained that one of my sailors would come round to his office and chalk up on the door " Shut." That was all that would happen. He bowed politely and echoed, " Oh ! that is all that would happen." The Press were really very good. I only once had to put this rather drastic rule into operation.

In ordinary law a person is considered innocent until he is proved guilty. In martial law, the boot is on the other leg. The person is considered guilty until he can prove his innocence. This fundamental principle gave me facilities for dealing with the suspects and spies, and we very soon had them all safely lodged in the prison.

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MARTIAL LAW IN DURBAN

A rumour got about that I had condemned one of these suspects, a Mr. Marks, to be shot, and the Boer Government wrote to say that if he were shot, they would shoot six British officers. The Imperial Government had to inform them that this would be a violation of the recognised custom of warfare. As to Mr. Marks, there was never any intention of shooting him ; he was only being taken care of.

In Durban there were many Boer agents who attempted to buy war requisites, and send them to the Portuguese town of Lorenzo Marques, whence they would be dispatched to Pretoria.

For a few days we did not know how these agents communicated with Pretoria, since their letters did not go through the post. Mr. Sergeant Brooke, who always found out everything, one day brought me some letters incriminating two of the agents.

He informed me that their procedure had been to go on board the, steamer just before she left for Lorenzo Marques and put the letters into the ship's box, thus evading the censorship. One of the pair, a Mr. X, as I would not let him go back to Lorenzo Marques, asked leave to go to Capetown on account of his health. I could not withhold permission, and having reached Capetown he took legal proceedings against me, claiming �15,000 damages. Field-Marshal Lord Roberts sent the claim on to me, and requested that I would wire if I had a satisfactory answer to give. I telegraphed to that effect, and in my subsequent reply was able to answer each paragraph of the lawyer's communication by quoting from his (Mr.

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A CURIOUS INCIDENT

X's) own letters which, quite unknown to him, had come into our possession. Two of the paragraphs were as follows :

Mr. X's letters and those from his partner clearly showed that they were procuring flour for the Boers, who were short of the commodity and paying very high prices for it.

I ended my letter by suggesting that if Mr. X made any further claim, he should be prosecuted for perjury.

The Field-Marshal wired to me that my reply was quite satisfactory, and that Mr. X had been informed in the sense of the last paragraph of my letter.

The currency business gave us a lot of trouble until an order given by Sir Alfred Milner, ¹ put matters right. The Boer agents had brought all their money down with them in Transvaal notes,

¹ Afterwards Viscount Milner.

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and the proclamation forbade the banks cashing Transvaal notes. This proclamation, however, hit our refugees from Pretoria and Johannesburg and other Boer towns very hardly, as their money was also in notes. The difficulty was solved by Sir Alfred Milner's telegraphic instruction that notes could be cashed if I endorsed them. I endorsed the notes for the refugees, but refused to endorse the large sums required by the Boer agents. Finding they could get no money, these gentry left for Capetown, and we had much less trouble.

We were rather bothered by people who, not understanding our office, thought we dealt with all sorts of cases, including matrimonial differences. Lunatics sometimes called, and put before us plans for destroying all the Boers by poison, or asphyxiating them by firing shells containing chloroform. It was left to the German barbarians to introduce such methods of perverted intelligence in the late war.

I got a letter from a mysterious gentleman one day, saying he wished to see me, but not at my office. Finally, after some difficulty - for neither the club nor the hotel suited him as a rendezvous - a place of meeting was arranged.

He had come from Capetown, and wanted permission to go on to Beira, on a somewhat peculiar mission. The authorities at Capetown had learned that the Boers were getting plenty of gold from the Johannesburg mines, but that they were short of dies to coin it into money. Intercepted letters showed that dies had been made in Germany and were coming out in a steamer which called at Beira.

My mysterious visitor wished to meet that

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CONTRABAND OF WAR

steamer and take a passage in her to Lorenzo Marques, where the dies were to be landed. I arranged passages for him, and on his return to Durban a few days afterwards, he informed me that during the night he was in the steamer he secured the dies and dropped them overboard. I believe that this neatly executed raid inconvenienced the Boers very much.

In addition to being Military Commandant, I was the Senior Naval Officer on the Natal side, and had to deal with the scrutiny of vessels carrying contraband of war. All vessels bound for Lorenzo Marques were boarded, and their papers examined. To make matters difficult, the authorities at home kept on changing their minds as to what was contraband of war, and what was not. I received strings of contradictory telegrams on the subject. We were also supplied with very bad information. When I got a telegram to seize a ship on the ground that she had guns or some contraband of war on board, it invariably turned out on examination that she contained no contraband goods, and the Government were obliged to pay heavy damages for demurrage.

One day I got a wire to seize and examine a German ship, the Bundesrath, as it was certain that she was carrying arms for the Boers. A cruiser brought the ship into Durban, and the whole of her cargo was taken out. Nothing of a contraband nature was found - another example of bad information. From intercepted letters I discovered that four of her passengers were Boers returning to fight against us ; they admitted the fact to me in writing.

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According to my reading of International Law, they came under the heading of " Enemy belligerents in a neutral ship," and I was entitled to make prisoners of them. I did so. Four days afterwards, when we had got all her cargo out, I received a peremptory telegram to replace the cargo at once, and allow the Bundesrath, with the four Boers, to proceed to Lorenzo Marques. I believe the country paid Germany �50,000 for demurrage. Our Secret Service was, I am afraid, not very good, and why I was made to release the prisoners I have never been able to understand.

On the 16th January, 1900, while General Buller was away at Spion Kop with both the 4.7-inch guns, General Barton wired to me to ask if I could mount a 4.7-inch gun on a railway truck, as he wished to shell a new position that the Boers had taken up.

Sir David Hunter provided a truck strengthened up with timber. On it we put a platform mounting, securing it with chains. Owing to the amount of energy absorbed by the hydraulic cylinders, very little of the recoil was transmitted to the truck. Lady Randolph Churchill fired the test round, and the gun was christened after her.

Later on General Buller wired to me to ask the Admiral if he could have two more 4.7-inch guns mounted on platforms similar to the Ladysmith guns. Sir David Hunter put them in hand instantly. We got a couple of guns out of H.M.S. Philomel. In a few hours the mountings were completed, and the guns went off by special train to Chievely, and took a very active part in the final bombardment of the Colenso position which,

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REQUEST FOR A 6-IN. GUN

when forced, opened the road for our troops into Ladysmith.

General Buller subsequently informed me that he liked this pattern of mounting. Enormous rapidity of fire could be got out of it, as the aim for the next round was very little deranged by the act of firing. Moreover, what was really a fortress gun was virtually converted into a field gun, and its position could be quickly changed.

On the 8th February, having an appointment with the Governor at Pietermaritzburg, I had just taken my seat in the 4 p.m. train, when the following telegram was handed to me : " Clear the line. Urgent, No. 383. Have you a 6-inch gun on carriage that I could move a mile or so across the flat ? If you have, telegraph in my name to Admiral, and ask if I may have one for a few days. Utmost importance. If possible, I want it Monday, 12th, and you to work it. - Buller."

I wired back : "General Buller, Chievely. Six-inch gun on mobile mounting will leave here on Sunday night. - Percy Scott."

Then I began to consider how the mounting was to be made in 72 hours. I sent a steamer and a big lighter out to H.M.S. Terrible, and signalled to her to send a 6-inch gun on shore. I saw Sir David Hunter, and his men were started on at once. Fortunately I remembered that at Pietermaritzburg there was a pair of iron wheels made for a 4.7-inch gun, but discarded on account of the tyres being too narrow. By 10 p.m. we had the gun from the Terrible and the wheels from Maritzburg in the factory. The men worked all night, putting broader tyres on the

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wheels, and formed up an axle-tree and trail. On Saturday night at 12 o'clock, 56 hours after I received the telegram, the mounting was practically finished. The work of the Durban men on this mounting was magnificent; some worked continuously for the 48 hours during which it was under construction.

On Sunday morning 200 men were landed from the Terrible. We dragged the gun with ropes about two miles down to the beach, fired a few rounds as a test, and took it back to the station. There it was entrained and dispatched to Chievely, and it arrived at daylight on the 12th.

The gun was used for bombarding the Boer positions at Colenso, and fired 600 rounds, some at a range of 16,000 yards, and we found that spotting could be carried out even at this extreme range.

Among many other things, hospital ships were brought within the province of my office. General Buller wired to me : "Can you get a steamer and convert her into a hospital ship ? " The steamer agents met me very readily, and in a very short time we had two well-equipped hospital ships.

During the last week in January a hospital ship, flying the Union Jack and the American Stars and Stripes, anchored in the roads. This was the Maine, a vessel that had been bought and equipped by American women as a very practical mark of their sympathy for the sick and wounded soldiers in South Africa. Lady Randolph Churchill, the president of the committee of ladies who raised the necessary funds, was on board the ship. Mr. Winston Churchill, who was at Pietermaritzburg. came down to meet his mother.

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MR. CHURCHILL AT DURBAN

On the following day when the ship carne into harbour, the Mayor of Durban and I called The Mayor presented Lady Randolph with an address from the Natalians, which expressed their appreciation of the American ladies' sympathy. I presented a martial law pass, and the manager of the Natal Government Railway placed a saloon carriage at her ladyship's disposal to travel anywhere she wished. We thus did our best to recognise the kindly thought and generosity of a friendly Power.

Mr. Winston Churchill arrived at Durban as correspondent of the Morning Post. He was twenty-six years of age, had written well, had been in the Army, and had seen active service with the Malakand, Tirah and Nile expeditions. He had contested Oldham as a Unionist, and nearly gained the seat.

A fortnight after his arrival, he went for a trip in an armoured train dispatched to reconnoitre the Boer positions. No precautions were taken, and the Boers getting round to the rear, pulled up the line. On the return journey the engine was derailed and a heavy fire opened on the train by a commando who had concealed themselves with two field guns.

Mr. Winston Churchill displayed great gallantry in helping to get the engine and a truck on the line again under a heavy fire, and I have always thought that his gallantry might have been rewarded. He was a civilian, it was his business to run away, and he could have done so, but he stayed to fight. As a rising man, however, he had many enemies, and instead of getting a decoration, he

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MARTIAL LAW IN DURBAN

had to bring a libel action against some of his defamers.

This unwisely planned reconnoitre cost 50 killed and wounded, and 54 men were made prisoners, among them some of our sailors and Mr. Winston Churchill. A month later I received a telegram announcing the latter's escape.

On the 23rd Mr. Churchill arrived at Durban and met with a great reception. The loyal Natalians, delighted at his outwitting the slim Boers, dragged his rickshaw in triumph to my office. He looked very dishevelled, tired and worn, so I suggested he should take a rest for a day or two at Durban. His reply was, "When is the next train for the Front ? " I told him in half an hour. He decided to go by it. I accompanied him to Pietermaritzburg, and 48 hours after his arrival at Durban he was back on the spot where he was taken prisoner a month before.

On the way up in the train, he told me about his capture and escape, and of a plan he had devised for the 4000 English prisoners in Pretoria to break out, seize the armoury, where there were plenty of rifles, make prisoners of Paul Kruger and Mr. Stein, and hold Pretoria until the British arrived. With a good leader, this daring scheme would undoubtedly have succeeded. What a chance thrown away ! Fancy the excitement in England if a telegram had announced : " English prisoners have taken Pretoria. Kruger and Stein prisoners of war." How often people have the ball at their feet, but will not kick it !

Nine years after the war I met a Boer officer at Pretoria who was in charge of our prisoners.

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THE RELIEF OF LADYSMITH

I told him the story, and he said that it would undoubtedly have succeeded, as the prisoners were inadequately guarded. He added that the authorities realised the thing could be done, and that was why, after Mr. Churchill's escape, they stopped all communication between the officers and men.

On the 29th March, Sir Walter Hely Hutchinson and Lady Randolph Churchill were dining with me on board the Terrible, when the welcome news arrived that Ladysmith was relieved. I ordered the main brace to be spliced (for which I subsequently got hauled over the coals by the Admiralty). Every one in the town who could get a firework, let it off, and there was jubilation all round. On the strength of it the prisoners in the gaol naively asked if they could not be let out. I reflected, however, that Durban was very peaceable with them under lock and key.

A few days afterwards I went up to Ladysmith to congratulate General Buller and to say good-bye to him, for I realised that I should now be soon moving on to China. I saw Prince Christian Victor, looking the picture of health, and in a great state of delight at having been in all the battles. Six months later, he succumbed to that terrible enemy of our troops, enteric fever, and was buried at Pretoria.

Early in March I received the following letter from Sir Redvers Buller :-

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MARTIAL LAW IN DURBAN

On the 13th March our contingent returned to Durban, rejoined the ship and changed from khaki to naval uniform. I spent a fortnight in clearing up my duties as Commandant of Durban, ready for turning the post over to my successor, Colonel Morris, C.B. From the Governor of the Colony, as from the Town Council of Durban, I received messages of appreciation, which I valued greatly. ¹ On the 26th I said good-bye to all my good friends at Durban, and a farewell dinner given to me at the Club demonstrated what true, honourable and loyal citizens to the Empire I was leaving. I re-embarked on board the Terrible, and the next day we weighed the anchor, which had been down for nearly six months in the Durban Roads, and, with a last signal to loyal

¹ Cf. Appendix.

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FINAL CONGRATULATIONS

Natal, the engines began to turn round, and we shaped a course northward en route to China.

I lost no time in thanking and congratulating Lieutenant Hughes Onslow on the admirable way he had acted as captain of the ship during my five months on shore. Owing to Lieutenant Onslow's tact and ability the behaviour of the portion of the ship's company that remained on board was splendid. They had had no leave and a very hard and trying time, but, notwithstanding this, the highest discipline was maintained.

I congratulated Captain Limpus and the officers and men under his command on the admirable way they had behaved on shore when acting as artillery to assist the Army, and read to them letters from General Sir R. Buller and other officers paying high tribute to their conduct.

Sir Redvers Buller repeatedly referred to the assistance which the guns, mounted in accordance with my design, rendered to the Army ; he mentioned the matter in his dispatches, and he wrote, on January 9th, 1903, that " It is impossible to overestimate the value these guns were to the Army in the field." These mountings were in the nature of an invention, and Sir Redvers suggested that, in accordance with the usual practice, a monetary grant should be made to me. What happened to his recommendation I do not know, but at any rate nothing came of it, though the vital character of the service which these guns on my mountings rendered was no secret at the time, and the design was revived in the Great War which has recently closed.

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