The Secrets of the German War Office | Page 2

is no

studied attempt to create mystery. There is a certain dead line which no
one can cross with impunity and none but a fool would attempt to.
Powerful governments have found it advisable to keep silence
regarding my antecedents. A case in point occurred when McKinnon
Wood, Secretary for Scotland, refused in the House of Commons to
give any information whatsoever about me, this after pressure had been
brought to bear on him by three mernbers of Parliament. Either the
Home Secretary knew nothing about my antecedents, or his trained
discretion counseled silence.
I was brought up in the traditions of a house actively engaged in the
affairs of its country, for hundreds of years. As an only son, I was
promptly and efficiently spoiled for anything else but the station in life
which should have been mine--but never has been and, now, never can
be. I used to have high aspirations, but promises never kept shattered
most of my ideals. The hard knocks of life have made me a fatalist, so
now I shrug my shoulders. _"Che sara sara."_ I have had to lead my
own life and, all considered, I have enjoyed it. I have crowded into
thirty-nine years more sensations than fall to the lot of the average half
a dozen men.
Following the custom of our house, I was trained as a military cadet.
This military apprenticeship was followed by three years at a famous
gymnasium, which fitted me for one of the old classic universities of
Europe. And after spending six semesters there, I took my degrees in
philosophy and medicine. Not a bad achievement, I take it, for a young
chap before reaching his twenty-second birthday. I have always been
fond of study and had a special aptitude for sciences and the languages.
On one occasion I acquired a fair knowledge of Singalese and Tamul in
three months.
From the university I returned home. I had always been obstinate and
willful, not to say pigheaded, and being steeped in tales of wrongs done
to my house and country, and with the crass assurance of a young sprig
fresh from untrammeled university life, I began to give vent to
utterances that were not at all to the liking of the powers that were.
Soon making myself objectionable, paying no heed to their protests,
and one thing leading to another, my family found it advisable to send
me into utter and complete oblivion. To them I am dead, and all said
and done, I would rather have it so.

After the complete rupture of my home ties, I began some desultory
globe trotting. I knocked about in out-of-the-way corners, where I
observed and absorbed all sorts of things which became very useful in
my subsequent career. A native, and by that I mean an inhabitant, of
non-European countries always fascinated me, and I soon learned the
way of disarming their suspicion and winning their confidence--a
proceeding very difficult to a European. After a time I found myself in
Australia and New Zealand, where I traveled extensively, and came to
like both countries thoroughly. I have never been in the western part of
the United States, but from what I have heard and read I imagine that
the life there more closely resembles the clean, healthy, outdoor life of
the Australians than any other locality.
I was just on the point of beginning extensive travels in the South Sea
Islands, when the situation in South Africa became ominous. War
seemed imminent, and following my usual bent of sticking my nose in
where I was not wanted I made tracks for this potential seat of trouble. I
caught the first steamer for Cape Town landing there a month before
the outbreak of war. On horseback I made my way in easy stages up to
the Rand. Here happened one of those incidents, which, although small
in itself, alters the course of one's life. What took place when I rode
into a small town on the Rand known as Doorn Kloof one chilly misty
morning, was written in the bowl of fate.
Doorn Kloof is well named; it means "the hoof of the Devil." A
straggling collection of corrugated iron shanties set in the middle of a
grayish sandy plain as barren of vegetation as the shores of the Dead
Sea, sweltering hot an hour after sunrise, chilly cold an hour after
sunset, populated by about four hundred Boers of the old
narrow-minded ultra Dutch type with as much imagination as a
grasshopper--that is Doorn Kloof.
When I rode into the village I was in a decidedly bad temper. Hungry,
wet to the skin, the dismal aspect of the place, the absence of anything
resembling a hotel, the incivility of the inhabitants, all contributed to
shorten my, by no means