Churchill Wanted Dead or Alive

8. The States Model School

EIGHT The States Model School 'Prisoner of War! That is the least unfortunate kind of prisoner to be, but it is nevertheless a melancholy state.' WINSTON CHURCHILL, My Early Life T H E S T A T E S M O D E L S C H O O L L O O K S , today, much the same as it did when Churchill was imprisoned there. Only the interior has been modified to accommodate the library it now contains. A large, single-storeyed brick building with a high, steep corrugated tin roof and a wide verandah, it housed two hundred pupils and sixteen staff when it opened in January 1897 as a boys' school and college of higher education. In October 1899 it was requisitioned to provide quarters for officer prisoners of war. Declared a national monument in 1963, it now stands at the intersection of two busy dual carriageways . They were no more than broad, dusty thoroughfares for pedestrians, riders, carriages and carts when Churchill trudged along Skinner Street and turned left into Van der Walt Street before halting in front of the school's arched entrance. What was then a grass-covered playground to the rear is now tarmacked over and occupied by low, whitewashed administrative buildings. In Churchill's time it contained scattered tents, a cookhouse and latrines, and was separated from the main building by a ten-foot-high wire fence. T h e whole area of the school and its grounds, some seventy yards square, was enclosed by nothing more than a chest-high ornamental iron fence at the front and sides, and six-foot iron railings to the rear. T h e bustling, built-up Pretoria of 80 The States Model School the present-day, now crowding in on all sides, was in 1899 a residential area of scattered houses, bungalows, spacious gardens and willow trees. The ten sentries patrolling the railings and fence were the only outward evidence that the building housed some sixty officer prisoners of war and their dozen soldier-servants. Inside the building, the twelve classrooms on either side of a long corridor had been turned into dormitories, while four large rooms, two at each end of the school, were used for dining and recreation. Churchill shared a dormitory with Haldane and four other officers. Later Haldane and two companions would make a trapdoor in the floorboards and a tunnel in which to hide; they emerged to escape when the building was vacated and the prisoners were moved to other accommodation. The trapdoor is preserved to this day, thus identifying Churchill's room at the front of the building, facing Van der Walt Street. When the weather became oppressively hot he often slept on the verandah, separated only by the iron railings from curious passers-by and freedom beyond. The prisoners' rations were adequate, but alcohol was forbidden until a week after Churchill's arrival, when the authorities rescinded this prohibition and allowed the purchase of bottled beer. This, and food to alleviate the monotony of the rations, could be obtained from a local dealer, Mr Boshof. It soon became apparent that, for a price, he could provide almost anything short of weapons, and a postscript to Churchill's first letter to his mother, written the day he arrived in Pretoria, showed he was already alert to the possibilities : 'Cox's [Cox & King's, his bank] should be instructed to cash any cheques I may draw.' One unusual concession was the issue of a civilian suit to each officer. As they were all of a similar cut, and were in a mustard colour, they would have instantly identified an escaped prisoner. No one seemed to suspect anything when Churchill bought a suit of dark tweed, but when he requested a slouch hat he was told he would have to make do with one of the many available pith helmets if he wanted protection from the sun while walking in the compound. The prison regulations were decided by a four-man board of 81 Churchill Wanted Dead or Alive management chaired by the Transvaal Secretary of State for War, Louis de Souza, whom Churchill described as 'a far seeing little man who had travelled to Europe, and had a very clear conception of the relative strengths of Britain and the Transvaal'. Churchill also took a liking to two of the other board members, Commandant Opperman, 'an honest and patriotic...