“My husband is here,” she said.
There was nothing David could do to dissuade her. “I’m going to join with the Boers,” David told her. “Will you be all right?”
“Yes, of course,” Margaret said. “I’ll try to keep the company going.”
The next morning David was gone.
The British had expected a quick and easy war, no more than a mopping-up operation, and they began with a confident, lighthearted holiday spirit. At the Hyde Park Barracks in London, a send-off supper was given, with a special menu showing a British soldier holding up the head of a boar on a tray. The menu read:
SEND-OFF SUPPER
To the CAPE SQUADRON, November 27, 1899
MENU
Oysters—Blue Points
Compo Soup
Toady in the Hole
Sandy Sole
Mafeking Mutton
Transvaal Turnips. Cape Sauce
Pretoria Pheasants
White Sauce
Tinker Taters
Peace Pudding. Massa Ices
Dutch Cheese
Dessert
(You are requested not to throw shells under the tables)
Boer Whines—Long Tom
Hollands-in-Skin
Orange Wine
The British were in for a surprise. The Boers were on their own home territory, and they were tough and determined. The first battle of the war took place in Mafeking, hardly more than a village, and for the first time, the British began to realize what they were up against. More troops were quickly sent over from England. They laid siege to Kimberley, and it was only after a fierce and bloody fight that they went on to take Ladysmith. The cannons of the Boers had a longer range than those of the British, so long-range guns were removed from British warships, moved inland and manned by sailors hundreds of miles from their ships.
In Klipdrift, Margaret listened eagerly for news of each battle, and she and those around her lived on rumors, their moods varying from elation to despair, depending on the news. And then one morning one of Margaret’s employees came running into her office and said, “I just heard a report that the British are advancing on Klipdrift. They’re going to kill us all!”
“Nonsense. They wouldn’t dare touch us.”
Five hours later, Margaret McGregor was a prisoner of war.
Margaret and Kate were taken to Paardeberg, one of the hundreds of prison camps that had sprung up all over South Africa. The prisoners were kept inside an enormous open field, ringed by barbed wire and guarded by armed British soldiers. The conditions were deplorable.
Margaret took Kate in her arms and said, “Don’t worry, darling, nothing’s going to happen to you.”
But neither of them believed it. Each day became a calendar of horrors. They watched those around them die by the tens and the hundreds and then by the thousands as fever swept through the camp. There were no doctors or medication for the wounded, and food was scarce. It was a constant nightmare that went on for almost three harrowing years. The worst of it was the feeling of utter helplessness. Margaret and Kate were at the complete mercy of their captors. They were dependent upon them for meals and shelter, for their very lives. Kate lived in terror. She watched the children around her die, and she was afraid that she would be next. She was powerless to protect her mother or herself, and it was a lesson she was never to forget. Power. If you had power, you had food. You had medicine. You had freedom. She saw those around her fall ill and die, and she equated power with life. One day, Kate thought, I’ll have power. No one will be able to do this to me again.
The violent battles went on—Belmont and Graspan and Stormberg and Spioenkop—but in the end, the brave Boers were no match for the might of the British Empire. In 1902, after nearly three years of bloody war, the Boers surrendered. Fifty-five thousand Boers fought, and thirty-four thousand of their soldiers, women and children died. But what filled the survivors with a deep savage bitterness was the knowledge that twenty-eight thousand of those died in British concentration camps.
On the day the gates of the camp were flung open, Margaret and Kate returned to Klipdrift. A few weeks later, on a quiet Sunday, David Blackwell arrived. The war had matured him, but he was still the same grave, thoughtful David Margaret had learned to rely upon. David had spent these hellish years fighting and worrying about whether Margaret and Kate were dead or alive. When he found them safe at home, he was filled with joy.