The Petticoat Commando

MP3 Audio CD. The Petticoat Commando

CHAPTER I

THE SCENE OF ACTION


When, on October 11th, 1899, shortly before 5 o'clock in the
afternoon, martial law was proclaimed throughout the Transvaal and
Orange Free State, South Africa, and after the great exodus of British
subjects had taken place, there remained in Pretoria, where the
principal events recorded here took place, a harmonious community of
Boers and sympathisers, who for eight months enjoyed the novel
advantage of Boer freedom under Boer martial law.

The remaining English residents were few in number, and kept, to all
appearance, "strictly neutral," until the morning of June 5th, 1900,
when the British troops poured into the capital.

The two people chiefly concerned in this story, mother and daughter,
lived in Sunnyside, a south-eastern suburb of Pretoria, on a large and
beautiful old property, appropriately called Harmony, one of the
oldest estates in the capital.

This historical place consisted of a simple, comfortable farm-house,
with a rambling garden--a romantic spot, and an ideal setting for the
adventures and enterprises here recorded.

At the time our story opens, the owner, Mrs. van Warmelo, was living
alone on it with her daughter, Hansie, a girl of twenty-two, the
diarist referred to in the Introduction.