THE PETTICOAT COMMANDO.*
This book, which is being published in Dutch as well as in English, is founded on a diary written during the Boer War by Miss Hansie Van Warmelo, now Mrs. Brandt. Encouraged by the knowledge that the lemon juice with which she wrote was a serviceable secret ink, she kept lively record of the events of her daily life, which included many adventures, the most exciting of which were those connected with the spies of the Boer secret service. "Hansie," as Mrs. Brandt generally calls herself, lived alone with her mother in a. suburb of Pretoria. She says very little about the house itself, but her descriptions of the large gardens in which it stood, and of the abundance of fruit which she and her mother generously shared with the surrounding English soldiers, are vivid and picturesque. This close neighbour- hood of the troops seems to have given these ladies a comfortable feeling of protection, and they often sought the aid of officers or men. This reliance on the kind- ness of the English perhaps accounts for the way in which the burghers left their women and children to take care of themselves, and then complained bitterly of the arrangements made for them by the "enemy," as if their own responsibility for them had ceased as soon as the fighting began. It is interesting to read of the life led by these two ladies, of their queer native servants, their ingenious methods of evading the censor, at first only for a romantic reason, though later for more dangerous ones, the visits of spies, and the raid on their house, in which nothing was discovered. After all the anxiety and strain that " Hansie bore so pluckily, the sympathetic reader will learn with pleasure of the happy ending of her romance. Mrs. Brandt's English style is pleasant and readable, if she will allow us to say so (she says that she was vexed when she was told that she spoke good English). We might quote other sentences, but this saying of one of her children seems to us an appro- priate ending to this notice : " Writing a book, mother P About the spies ? And the lemon juice ? Oh, mother, what will the English say P"
Previous page
