Death in the Silent Places

by Peter Hathaway Capstick

  It cleared. A British landing party cautiously approached the shell-shattered shoreline, bypassing scattered bodies of enemy snipers and artillery observers. Those land batteries not caught by British gunfire had been moved inland by the enemy. A good sign, thought Pretorius; perhaps there was nothing left to defend. As the party penetrated farther upriver, bristling in anticipation of an ambush, the tortured and twisted corpse of the once-carnivorous Königsberg, Prince of the Southern Fleet, came into sight, a fire-blackened tangle of Krupp steel, torn and eviscerated, covered with the burned and explosive-mutilated, fly-covered bodies of her crew. Königsberg the Raider was dead, tracked, stalked and hunted to her den by a lean, quiet, dark-faced man who had learned not to like Germans.

  Pretorius, it would seem, was not the forgiving sort. Although he had spent months risking his life hounding down the Königsberg, the exploit for which he would be most remembered, her destruction, only seemed to fan the fires that drove him against the Huns. Over the remainder of the war—the cruiser having brought him fame with both the Allies and the enemy—Pretorius acted mostly behind German lines in the capacity of chief scout to General Jan Smuts, commander of the South African Allied force and later prime minister of that country. If there was a more dangerous job in the African theater, it doesn’t come immediately to mind.

  At his first meeting with General Smuts, Pretorius was asked the best way to take strategic Salaita Hill, along the railway line and in possession of a powerful German force. At first, he thought Smuts was joking, asking him how to take a hill in the presence of a half-dozen other generals. However, General Japie van Deventer spoke with him in Afrikaans and explained that they were very serious, his recommendation sought because he knew the country so well from his elephant-poaching days.

  Pretorius thought the problem over for a few minutes and then proposed that the hill could be taken without firing a single shot. The assembled brass glanced sideways at each other. Perhaps this chap Pretorius had spent too much time wandering about without his pith helmet?

  “Salaita,” continued P.J., unruffled, “is in a little desert where there is not a drop of water to be found, and the Germans are getting their supply from Taveta, a town eight miles away. I would parade six hundred men in the afternoon so that the Germans could see them.” Dead silence blanketed the room as Pretorius paused, then went on. “At the same time, I would leave with a column in a northerly direction until I got behind the skyline, and then I would turn back to the west, and by morning I would be at Taveta. Once our troops are in Taveta, thirst would beat the Germans.”

  Smuts thought the plan brilliant, yet inquired whether the enemy had any emplacements on Mt. Kilimanjaro which could attack the rear of the South African force. Pretorius didn’t know, but since he was chief scout and the great, snow-crowned crag was only twenty miles away, he might as well go have a look. Within an hour, he and five men were on the way. It was one hell of a rough reconnoiter, but Pretorius found the slopes unoccupied by the enemy. There were, on the other hand, a few other problems—70,000 of them, actually. The powerful and warlike WaChaka tribe had recently declared war on the British Allies, and Taveta was in the center of their territory.

  To simplify a rather involved maneuver, the two columns, one led by van Deventer and the other by General Coen Brits, ran into a very large and definitely unsociable impi, or regiment, of WaChaka. At loggerheads, Pretorius actually talked the warriors out of fighting for the Germans and bluffed the entire party into retiring! Taveta was occupied despite bloody hand-to-hand fighting in the covering hills of Reata and Latema, where the German General von Lettow-Vorbeck staged a withdrawal action, badly mauling the South African infantry and the Second Rhodesians. Salaita Hill was taken, but the Germans had the forethought to destroy miles of the rail line so it was of no use to the Allies. Pretorius was in the bush eight days, following the Huns, and somehow was reported killed in action. When he showed up at Smuts’s headquarters, he caused quite a stir, although he’d missed his own memorial service.

  After the Salaita affair, Pretorius’ war conformed much more closely to his old hunting style, ghosting through enemy territory so close to the Germans that one day, turning a corner of what he thought was a deserted trench, he was saluted by a pair of enemy askaris who thought he was one of their own officers.

  To understand the pressure on Pretorius and his resiliency in the face of constant danger, it must be remembered that, ever since the Königsberg, there was not only a princely price on his head but the guarantee of summary execution of any native caught aiding him in any way.

  Typical of the close calls he survived was a trap laid for his mounted scouting force one very hot day when, unaware that they had been seen by the enemy, they had to cross a clearing to the edge of a small river to let the horses drink. When they had taken water, the little patrol withdrew into the bush to light a small fire for a meal. Pretorius had just lit the flame when one of his sentries shouted, “Look out! Here come the Germans!” P.J. smothered the fire with his hand, and the scouts took off in a rain of German bullets, their luck again holding as nobody was hit. How close that escape really was became clear three months later when Pretorius personally captured two of his opposite numbers, a pair of German scouts named Schmidt and Linderkund. The architects of the ambush, they confirmed that the trap was almost ready to be sprung when the sentry spotted them. They even quoted some of the words written on the paper Pretorius had used to start the fire.

  A week after this incident, Pretorius stumbled onto a seemingly contradictory bit of behavior on the part of the Germans. Watching a large camp he had found and was studying with binoculars, he was amazed to see the troops fall in at a command for target practice, using large amounts of what the Allies had presumed to be very precious rifle cartridges. Even Smuts himself had been under the impression that the enemy would soon be forced to surrender through lack of ammunition. So, wondered Pretorius, why were they wasting it in casual target practice? When the enemy had finished firing and gone off to mess, Pretorius crept down and collected several empty cartridge cases, flabbergasted to find them head-stamped “Magdeburg—1916.” Brand-new. But where had they come from? And how?

  After the Königsberg operation, Pretorius knew that a German steamer had been found near a small tidal creek and had been sunk immediately by a British cruiser, so that couldn’t have been the source. Actually, it was. After capturing Schmidt and Linderkund, Pretorius found that the sunken steamer had crossed the British blockade under a neutral flag with tons of supplies fresh from Der Vaterland, especially artillery shells and rifle ammo. Realizing she was bound to be sunk, all the cargo had been sealed in special waterproof containers and sandbagged in the hold. Among the crew were specially trained divers who, when the ship went down and the British withdrew, returned the next day and salvaged the entire cargo. Quite a slick operation, even Pretorius had to admit.

  Although a classic bushman and scout, known in later life as “Jungle Man,” so wary of his enemies that he never slept twice in the same place while in the field, it would still have been inevitable that one day he would just run low on luck and be captured or killed. So why wasn’t he ever caught or even wounded again? Well, if you want to take his word for it, he was psychic. “Slim Janie” Smuts believed him, and, when we look at the record, perhaps he did have some sort of sixth sense … .

  Let’s take a rainy night when Pretorius rode back to friendly lines, leaving his twenty-man force (many of whom had been converted from German service) a thousand yards above a German camp with orders to watch for any movements along the trails. Since it was six miles back to his position through the rain, the HQ staff suggested that he spend the night and return in the morning. He stayed for dinner gratefully but saddled up at nine o’clock, reaching his inconspicuous grass shelters two hours later.

  His native troops reported no activity below, and, it being nearly midnight, Pretorius thought it safe enough to catch some sack time. He undressed, put on
his pajamas and was about to get into his camp cot when the old, instinctive feeling of danger came over him. He knew better than to ignore it; redressing, he ordered his weary men to break camp and take a native path to the north, where a deserted village with fine, dry huts lay. His men, wet and half-frozen, were for staying over in the huts, but Pretorius’ nagging sense of warning wouldn’t quit. The party continued through the village to a low range of hills beyond. As they were laying out their mildewed blankets, they heard a fusillade of shots erupt at their old encampment above the enemy position. Perhaps his men had seen no Germans, but the opposite certainly wasn’t true. They had left just before the jaws of the trap had clashed.

  Realizing that the enemy would be bound to follow them, he warned his men to be ready, only to find that some of his askaris had straggled in the dark and had stayed behind in the deserted village. Up marched a large force of Germans and pounded on the door of a hut containing Pretorius’ not overbright men, who were forced to surrender before the hut was burned down around them. Hiding in a stand of corn, P.J. watched with fifteen of his men as the Germans took the other five prisoner and then settled down for the night, taking off their boots and relaxing. As soon as they were quiet, the scouts opened fire, so startling the enemy that they left the prisoners and broke for the corn without returning a single shot.

  Obviously, if Pretorius’ “sixth sense” hadn’t been working, he and his command would have been slaughtered in their first camp.

  If Pretorius’ sense of warning was effective for himself, it didn’t seem to rub off easily on his men. In this same neighborhood, some time later, the Afrikaaner had a very close call in a German ambush set for him. He himself escaped, but the next morning he watched from hiding on a hill across a stream as seven of his men who had been captured were carefully hung from a big tree. They were not dropped to fracture the neck vertebrae—the instant death of a formal hanging—but strung up to choke and strangle their lives away over many minutes, eyeballs popping, tongues protruding. The Germans were making good on their promise of death for any black assisting that wraith, Major Pretorius.

  On a later expedition, leading a column under a Colonel Morris, planning to cross the Rufiji River to attack the admittedly brilliant soldier General von Lettow-Vorbeck, Pretorius again heard the warning buzzer go off in his head. The party was within two miles of the crossing point, but, although he could not explain why, he insisted that they not continue as planned but march at right angles to the west, proceeding to a point some two miles from the original spot chosen. All went well, and the troops got across the river in collapsible boats, quickly entrenching themselves. Taking off on a personal scouting trip, Pretorius found a strong German force patiently waiting for the column at exactly where they had originally decided to cross. Caught in the water, that would have been the end of the Morris force.

  If you question the premonitions of Pretorius, it’s interesting to note that three times men who were acting as his replacement because of some last-minute change in plans were killed, mistaken for Pretorius himself. The first was one of the most gallant gentlemen, scholars, hunters and naturalists Africa ever produced, Frederick Courteney Selous. It had been Selous who had hunted Zambezia even before Pretorius, led Rhodes’s pioneer column into what would become Rhodesia and was a close personal friend of Theodore Roosevelt, one of his highest-ranking admirers. Well over sixty years of age, Selous was a mere captain of the 25th Royal Fusiliers, but a scout of repute equal to that of Pretorius. Orders were changed, though, by Smuts, substituting Selous for Pretorius to guide an expedition to Behobeho. Riding at the head of the force, he was killed by a sniper with a single bullet through the neck, dead before he hit the ground. He was buried on the spot, in later years a game reserve named for him. As of this writing, as Rhodesia has just become Zimbabwe, one of the most famous crack units of the army is called the Selous Scouts.

  Another who took Pretorius’ place in line at the pearly gates—or elsewhere—was an intelligence officer named van de Merwe, a well-trained twenty-four-year-old Afrikaaner. Again, a change of orders from Smuts, originally directing Pretorius to Makindu to check if von Lettow-Vorbeck (who, incidentally, was a good friend of Karen Blixen, the Danish noblewoman who wrote the hauntingly beautiful book Out of Africa under the pen name Isak Dinesen) had reoccupied the place, reversed the situation, and van de Merwe was sent on that mission; Pretorius’ orders were changed to scout for General Beves in his attack on another German position. P.J. briefed van de Merwe, who was excited about being given the job, warning him to be extremely careful as the Germans had been keeping a sharp lookout for enemy scouting forces, and recent losses had been heavy. Pretorius suggested that he take his force up a rocky hill, or kopje, during the daytime near the main road, watch the enemy traffic and, above all, be sure to change to another position when night fell, even if he was positive that he hadn’t been detected. Pretorius lent the young officer ten of his personal askaris and saw him off before leaving himself with Beves.

  The next day, minutes after the force under Beves assaulted and took the trenches that were their objective (under the German commander Merensky), one of the askaris sent with van de Merwe showed up to speak with Pretorius. His report was not very cheerful. As Pretorius had advised, the scouting patrol had set up “shop” atop a convenient hill and monitored the German traffic below, which seemed light. Despite P.J.’s stiff warning to the young man to move at dark, he nonetheless determined to stay the night where he was, sure he and his men had not been seen by the enemy. At midnight, the scouts were jolted awake by the crack of a single rifle shot. Running to the huddled lump of blankets that wrapped van de Merwe, they found him thoroughly and instantly dead, shot squarely through the neck.

  Of course the Afrikaaner’s party had been spotted sometime during the day and a trap laid. As this area was known to be the haunt of Pretorius, the enemy sent a single sniper to pick him off, rather than risk detection by a sizable attack. Whoever was behind that Mauser was bloody good and had probably been following the white leader through the cross hairs for some time, smart enough to wait for the scouts to bed down and give himself time to make his escape after a single, precise shot. To make that shot in the dark at what must have been a reasonable distance—so sure of his target he didn’t bother to fire an “insurance” shot—indicates a first-class bushman and marksman. There is nothing to substantiate the possibility, but it would seem the Germans might have assigned a crack sniper to the area who would be sent off any time Pretorius was reported sighted. Remember, it was a single neck shot that killed Selous, too, who was standing in for Pretorius.

  Already, the askari reported, the German positions were celebrating the death of Major P. J. Pretorius, C.M.G., D.S.O. Not only did they believe him dead at last, but I wonder what they might have thought had they known then that the “Jungle Man” was still to do enough damage to earn a Bar to his Distinguished Service Order, and more.

  The actions that added Pretorius’ Bar to his D.S.O. comprise an interesting series of tales of immensely effective scouting and subterfuge behind the German lines, culminating in his persuading more than 2,000 German territorial natives to revolt and fight for the Allies. Armed with smuggled rifles, gun by gun, the revolt broke with perfect timing, smashing the German organization in the Makonde area, an enemy rear stronghold. In the letter of commendation which accompanied his second winning of the coveted decoration, General O’Grady wrote: “You are certainly a thorn in the side of von Lettow.” Pretorius said that no compliment had ever given him such satisfaction.

  The Makonde revolt was a telling blow to enemy personnel and morale, make no mistake. But for sheer drama, few of his military exploits approached the brilliance and personal resourcefulness of what we might refer to as the taking of the Tafel column. It was Pretorius’ last campaign of the war and began when he was in the hospital as a result of the terrible beating he was giving his wiry body and the awful tension of living behind enemy lines. His
strength had been slipping, but an Allied attack on von Lettow-Vorbeck’s camp, in which he was involved, had brought him to the limit of his endurance. On that day, Pretorius had personally found an escape route for the South Africans who were being overwhelmed by the Germans, despite having killed over 800 of the enemy in the engagement. His horse was shot out from under him with two bullets, and he went without food for three days and four nights.

  While in a field hospital, recuperating from fever, malnutrition and exhaustion, he still insisted that his scouts’ reports on enemy movements be brought to him at his bedside. One morning, after only a few days of rest, a particularly juicy report arrived. Taken from a captured German messenger, it was addressed to General von Lettow-Vorbeck personally. It read:

  “Yesterday I had to fight with the enemy. I vanquished them and managed to capture their food, but their supplies, together with mine, can last only three days. I am trekking to the top of the Bangala river [sic], from where I will follow it down to the crossroads at the river.”

  The signature was that of a Major Tafel.

  Hmmmmm, thought Pretorius. The crossroads at the Bangala were only a couple of miles from his old poaching territory on the Ruvuma and seventy-five miles from the hospital. As he went over his mental map, it dawned on him that if he could get a force to the crossroads before Tafel got there, he could clear the district of natives, burn all supplies and put Herr Tafel’s column into the position of watching their navels rapidly approach their spines. Starvation was as lethal as lead, and that “an army marches on its stomach” was a lot more than a stale, military platitude.