Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill (57 page)

The first blow came
: Pakenham,
Scramble for Africa
, 570–71.

“Please understand that there is no one”
: Ibid., 571; National Army Museum, London.

“All the news we heard”
: Winston Churchill,
London to Ladysmith
, 65.

“huge slaughters and shameful flights”
: Ibid.

“as brutal a lot of men”
: Hofmeyr,
Story of My Captivity
, 117.

“How our blood boiled”
: Ibid., 153.

“A foul and objectionable brute”
: Winston Churchill,
London to Ladysmith
, 56.

“He is no man but a brute!!”
: Marie de Souza, diary, Oct. 19, 1899.

“brought a great deal of influence”
: Buttery,
Why Kruger Made War
, 45.

“place himself in a separate category”
: Winston Churchill,
London to Ladysmith
, 56.

“a picture of misery”
: Ibid., 55.

The day before Churchill had arrived
: “A Captured Boer Spy,”
Age
, Nov. 18, 1899.

If Marks were executed
: Ibid.; Marie de Souza, diary, Nov. 30, 1899.

“I see a rumour in the papers”
: Joubert to Reitz, Nov. 28, 1899, quoted in de Souza,
No Charge for Delivery
, 90.

“According to the
Volkstem
”
: Theron to Reitz, Nov. 28, 1899, quoted in ibid. Danie Theron was at this time a captain in the Transvaal Cyclist Corps. He later commanded a highly successful scouting unit known as Theron’s Verkenningskorps (Theron’s Scouting Corps). Information courtesy of Ken Gillings.

“not in the habit of killing”
: Reitz,
Commando
, 49. Later that night, after reading the articles, Reitz would tell his son that Churchill was a “clever young man, in which,” Deneys wrote, “he was not far wrong, for soon after the prisoner climbed over a wall and escaped out of the Transvaal.”

“Unless I am regarded”
: WSC to Stopford, Nov. 30, 1899, quoted in Randolph S. Churchill,
Youth
, 481.

“I agree to the exchange”
: Joubert to Acting Commandant General Pretoria, Haldane’s journal, 14OE and 14OF, AHD.

“As soon as I learned”
: Winston Churchill,
My Early Life
, 268.

CHAPTER 17: A SCHEME OF DESPERATE AND MAGNIFICENT AUDACITY

they had long ago estimated
: Burnett, diary, 1,
angloboerwar.com
.

“You feel a sense of constant humiliation”
: Winston Churchill,
My Early Life
, 259.

“by force or fraud”
: Winston Churchill,
London to Ladysmith
, 57.

“They find intense difficulty”
: Vischer,
Barbed Wire Disease
, quoted in Walter Wood.
The Enemy in Our Midst
(London: 1906), 127.

“the criminal who knows”
: Ibid.

After first keeping their prisoners
: A. J. Nathan, “Boer Prisoners of War on the Island of St. Helena,”
Military History Journal
11, no. 3/4 (Oct. 1999).

None of them worked
: When the first contingent of Boer prisoners arrived there, a group that included General Cronjé, the British magazine
Punch
published a cartoon showing Cronjé saluting the ghost of Napoleon and saying, “Same enemy, Sire! Same result!” Ibid.

During his six miserable years
: Mike Dash, “The Secret Plot to Rescue Napoleon by Submarine,”
Smithsonian Magazine
, March 8, 2013.

“I could not write”
: Winston Churchill,
London to Ladysmith
, 57.

“He no doubt felt”
: Haldane,
Soldier’s Saga
, 154.

“a scheme of desperate”
: Winston Churchill,
My Early Life
, 261.

“No walls are so hard to pierce”
: Ibid., 268.

“There were therefore periods”
: Ibid., 262.

“Who shall say that three men”
: Ibid., 264.

“Their life was monotonous”
: Ibid.

So bad, in fact, were the conditions
: Burnett, diary, 6,
angloboerwar.com
.

“nothing but leading”
: Winston Churchill,
London to Ladysmith
, 55.

“He talks brilliantly”
: Mortimer Menpes, “Young Winston in South Africa, 1900,”
Finest Hour
, no. 105 (Winter 1999–2000).

“What a feat of arms!”
: Winston Churchill,
My Early Life
, 266.

“Who shall say what is possible”
: Ibid., 262.

On December 7, three days before
: Haldane,
How We Escaped from Pretoria
, 30.

“The escape of these men”
: Ibid., 31.

Like Haldane, Brockie had no patience
: Crosbie, “Great Escape.”

“look the other way”
: Haldane,
How We Escaped from Pretoria
, 30.

“The whole enclosure”
: Winston Churchill,
My Early Life
, 263.

“disconnect them at any moment”
: Ibid., 263–64.

“Only one sentry could possibly”
: Haldane,
How We Escaped from Pretoria
, 30.

To get there, however, Haldane and Brockie
: Ibid., 30–31.

More than a decade earlier
: “Capt. Aylmer Haldane Divorced,”
Glasgow Herald
, Dec. 21, 1901.

In 1893, after years of impatient waiting
: Haldane,
Soldier’s Saga
, 59.

She wanted more money
: “Capt. Aylmer Haldane Divorced.”

“She tricked him”
: WSC to Lady Randolph Churchill, March 31, 1898, CAC.

“It is all very sad”
: WSC to Haldane, May 24, 1898, CAC.

“I hope the millstone”
: WSC to Haldane, Aug. 11, 1898. Kate Stuart would finally sue Haldane for divorce in December 1901, CAC.

“I was loath to seem ungenerous”
: Haldane,
Soldier’s Saga
, 155.

“I certify on my honour”
: Quoted in Randolph S. Churchill,
Youth
, 481.

“was to last me my life”
: Winston Churchill,
My Early Life
, 102.

“This led me to conclude”
: Haldane,
Soldier’s Saga
, 155.

“talkative friend”
: Ibid.

“getting wounded in the mouth”
: Douglas S. Russell, “Lt. Churchill: 4th Queen’s Own Hussars,”
www.winstonchurchill.org
.

“name would not be hidden”
: Haldane,
Soldier’s Saga
, 154.

“I do not exaggerate”
: Ibid., 155–56.

Brockie had the same objections
: Ibid., 155.

“repay him by leaving him”
: Ibid.

“I did not hide from him”
: Ibid., 155–56.

CHAPTER 18: “I SHALL GO ON ALONE”

“These things are best done”
: Winston Churchill,
London to Ladysmith
, 66.

“stealing secretly off”
: Ibid.

“in general terms what the plan”
: Haldane,
Soldier’s Saga
, 155.

“Everything after this”
: Winston Churchill,
My Early Life
, 270.

“Churchill is in a great state of excitement”
: Haldane, diary, Dec. 11, 1899, AHD.

“I perhaps have seen Churchill”
: Ibid, 140U.

“hopelessly beaten”
: Winston Churchill,
London to Ladysmith
, 66.

“crowded again into the stifling”
: Winston Churchill,
My Early Life
, 57.

Once in the yard, the men headed
: Ibid.

One by one, the other officers left
: Haldane,
Soldier’s Saga
, 150; Haldane, diary, 140H; Winston Churchill,
London to Ladysmith
, 66.

“a most unsatisfactory feeling”
: Winston Churchill,
London to Ladysmith
, 66.

“I was determined”
: Winston Churchill,
My Early Life
, 270.

“Another day of fear”
: Winston Churchill,
London to Ladysmith
, 66.

“We
must
go to-night”
: Haldane, diary, 140H.

“W.C. never lost sight”
: Ibid., 125.

“You’re afraid”
: Ibid., 140H.

When he had first agreed
: Haldane, diary, 140Q.

“That damned fool”
: Ibid.

“venture a seventh time”
: Walter Scott,
The Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart: Tales of a Grandfather
, 109.

“Unlike Robert the Bruce”
: Excerpt from Mrs. Stuart Menzies,
As Others See Us
(London: H. Jenkins, 1924).

“Now or never”
: Winston Churchill,
London to Ladysmith
, 66.

As he hid among the short, sharp branches
: Ibid., 66–67.

Sitting in the dining hall with Brockie
: Haldane, diary, 140H.

“carefully preserved”
: Ibid.

After trying unsuccessfully
: Hofmeyr,
Story of My Captivity
, 133; Haldane, diary, 140H.

“If Brockie and I were to escape”
: Haldane, diary, 140I.