Churchill Wanted Dead or Alive

10. Wanted Dead or Alive

T E N Wanted Dead or Alive 'I was in the heart of the enemy's country. I knew no one to whom I could apply for succour. Worst still I could not speak a word of Dutch or Kaffir.' WINSTON CHURCHILL, dispatch to the Morning Post, 12 December 1899 W H E N THE NEWS OF CHURCHILL'S escape arrived over the wires in London on 14 December, Oliver Borthwick, the editor of the Morning Post, lost no time in relaying the glad tidings to Lady Randolph: 'Ju s t received the following from Reuter, "Churchill escaped". The country being free from Boers & knowing his practical turn of mind I have no doubt that he knows what he is about and will turn up with an extra chapter of his book finished in a few days time at some British encampment.' Borthwick's prediction was closer to the truth than he realised, for even as he was writing the letter, Churchill had turned up at a British encampment of sorts, a coalmine run by an Englishman. But the reassuring letter in no way reflected Churchill's situation. The hue and cry his escape had caused across the veldt had given him a difficult and dangerous forty-eight hours, and his hideaway in the coalmine could be no more than a temporary sanctuary on the hazardous road to freedom. Two days earlier, having emerged from the bushes beside the prison railings, Churchill had walked down Skinner Street to the Apies River, to this day a dry streambed except after heavy rain, 116 Wanted Dead or Alive when it can suddenly burst into flood, where he sat on the parapet of a bridge to consider his plans. A story which was to be widely spread in South Africa had him boasting of wading the 'mighty Apies'. It is unlikely that the river would have been in flood in December, and in any case, there was the bridge on which he had sat. Never guilty of undue modesty, Churchill would surely have remembered and written about crossing a river in flood. Years later he attributed the story to a reporter's imagination, but by then an electricity sub-station on the Apies had been named 'Winston', and the legend established. In a brown suit and Adrian Hofmeyr's hat, Churchill was indistinguishable from the burghers taking the night air, and for the moment in no danger. That would come when, as a lone figure, he set out to cover the three hundred miles to Komatipoort, on the border with Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique). He assumed that by dawn his escape would be discovered. The Boers would cover all exits from Pretoria, and throw their net across the Transvaal. It was imperative that he move on as soon as possible, but the compass and map which would have provided directions, and his intended means of sustenance, meat lozenges and opium tablets, were back with Haldane and Brockie in the States Model School. Still, he had £75 in his pocket, which might buy his way out of trouble, four slabs of chocolate to keep him going, and the constellation Orion shining brightly above for guidance. He would find the railway and follow it eastwards. He struck the line half a mile farther on, at a point where, winding through the hills, it ran north to south. Hazarding a guess at the right direction, he began to walk along it: The night was delicious. A cool breeze fanned my face, and a wild feeling of exhilaration took hold of me. At any rate, I was free, if only for an hour. That was something. The fascination of adventure grew. Unless the stars in their courses fought for me, I could not escape. Where, then, was the need for caution? I marched briskly along the line. Here and there the lights of a picket fire gleamed. Every bridge had its watchers. But I passed them all, making very short detours at the dangerous n7 Churchill Wanted Dead or Alive places and really taking scarcely any precautions. Perhaps that was the reason I succeeded. After two hours he saw the signal lights of a wayside halt which, judging from the distance he is likely to have covered, must have been the small settlement of Koodoespoort. Skirting around the platform, he hid in a ditch some two hundred yards beyond it, intending to wait for...