The Petticoat Commando | Page 6

our boys!"
With unkempt hair and long beards, covered with dust, tattered and
weary, no wonder mother and sister failed to recognise them at first!
When the first greetings were over, the young men gave what news
they could--stupefying news of the advance of the enemy in
overwhelming numbers, and of the flight and confusion of what
remained of the Boer forces.
"What are you going to do?" their mother asked.
"Rest and feed our horses first of all, mother," Dietlof, the elder, replied.
"They are worn out and unfit for use. And when we have equipped
ourselves for whatever may be in store for us, we must join some small
commando and escape from the town. Little or no resistance is being
offered by our men, and it is evident that Pretoria will not be defended.
All we can do is to escape before the English take possession."
Mrs. van Warmelo then told her sons of the retreat of the President

from the capital, with the entire Government, by the eastern railway
route.
The greatest consternation had been caused by this flight at first, but
subsequent events went to prove that this was the wisest course which
could have been pursued.
In this decision the President had been urged by his wife, and Mrs. van
Warmelo went on to tell how the brave old lady had said to her in an
expressive way, on the occasion of her last visit at the President's
house:
"My dear friend, do not fear. No Englishman will ever lay his hand on
the coat-tails of the President."
It is quite impossible to describe the confusion that ensued during the
next few days.
No one knew what to do; there were no organised Boer forces to join,
there was no one in command, and, after long deliberation, the two
young men, urged by mother and sister, came to the conclusion that,
whatever other men might be doing, their duty was to get out of
Pretoria and join whatever band of fighting burghers there might still
be in the field.
The same spirit of determination not to fall into the hands of the enemy
while the Boer Government was free, and could continue organising the
war, prevailed amongst most of the men in Pretoria, and daily small
parties could be seen leaving the town, in carts, on horseback, on
bicycles, and even on foot. Where they were going and when they
would return no one knew.
On the morning of June 4th, the necessary preparations for the
departure of the young men having been made, as they were sitting at
what proved to be their last meal together for such long and terrible
years, they were suddenly startled by the sound of cannon-firing and
the whistling of a shell through the air.

They listened, speechless, as the shell burst on Schanskop Fort, on the
Sunnyside hill, just beyond Harmony, with an explosion that shook the
house.
It was followed by another and yet another.
So little were the inhabitants of Pretoria prepared for this that everyone
at first thought that the shells were being fired, for some unaccountable
reason, by the Boers, from the Pretoria Forts, until a few of them burst
so close to the houses that the fragments of rock and shell fell like hail
on the iron roofs. The other members of the family followed Mrs. van
Warmelo into the garden: and when it became evident that the enemy
was bombarding the Pretoria Forts, the two young men immediately
saddled their horses and rode out in the direction in which they thought
it most likely that some resistance would be offered, after having
advised their mother and sister to flee to some place of refuge in the
centre of the town.
There was no doubt that Harmony was directly in the line of fire, and as
the great shells went shrieking and hurtling through the air, the very
earth seemed to shake with the force of each explosion.
Mrs. van Warmelo hastily packed a few valuables into a hand-bag, and
fled into town with her daughter, leaving their dinner standing almost
untouched on the table. On their way to town, they found many
terrified women and children huddled under bridges for safety.
The bombardment continued all the afternoon, and ceased only when
darkness fell.
That night, when the van Warmelos returned to their deserted home,
they found the house still standing and no trace of the bombardment
except pieces of shell lying in the garden.
They were much surprised a few hours later, by the return of their two
warriors, weary and desperate after a hopeless attempt to keep back the
English with a handful of burghers, and the news they brought was to
the effect that Pretoria was to be surrendered to the