Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill (31 page)

Now Haldane was not the only man with a millstone around his neck. For all of the men, but especially for Churchill, prison was not only dangerous in the constantly shifting tide of war but an unbearable burden, denying him the glory of battle and the opportunity for recognition and advancement. This time, he was not about to let Haldane cut the cord around his own neck without also severing his.

Haldane knew that Churchill would insist that he take him along when he made his escape, but he did not know what to do about it. “
I was loath to seem ungenerous,” he wrote, “as would be the case if I went without him.” He was grateful for Churchill’s sympathy and friendship, and he admired his bravery during the attack on the
armored train. He had tried to do all he could to help him secure his release, even writing an open letter vouching for Churchill’s unblemished status as a noncombatant. “
I certify on my honour,” he had written the day after arriving at the Staats Model School, “that Mr. Winston Churchill, Correspondent of the Morning Post accompanied the armoured train on the 15 November as a non-combatant, unarmed and took no part in the defence of the train.”

Despite his attachment to Churchill, however, Haldane had strong reservations about attempting to escape with him. If they were able to make it out of the prison without being shot, they would have an arduous journey ahead of them, and just getting Churchill over the fence would be difficult. Years earlier in India, Churchill had dislocated his shoulder while trying to jump onto land from a rocking boat, snatching at an iron ring nailed into a stone wall just as the boat had jerked out from beneath him. It was an injury that, Churchill later wrote, “
was to last me my life…and to be a grave embarrassment in moments of peril, violence and effort.”

Aside from his injured shoulder, Churchill was out of shape. Since their imprisonment, Haldane had noticed, Churchill had been utterly uninterested in exercise. While the other men in the prison played vigorous games—from fives, which is similar to racquetball without the racket, to the bat-and-ball sport rounders—to keep themselves fit, Churchill sat before a chessboard or stared moodily at an unread book. “
This led me to conclude,” Haldane wrote, “that his agility might be at fault.”

Of even greater concern to Haldane than Churchill’s fitness was his lack of discretion. Haldane worried that his “
talkative friend” would be unable to keep their plans to himself. Even Churchill had to admit that he loved to talk. In fact, he had told a tent mate in Malakand that his only fear was “
getting wounded in the mouth so he couldn’t talk.”

For Churchill, few topics of conversation would be more irresistible than a prison break, especially if it worked. When trying to persuade Haldane to take him along, he promised his friend that if they made it out alive, he would share the spotlight. Haldane would
later recall Churchill assuring him that his “
name would not be hidden under a bushel—in other words, I would share ‘in a blaze of triumph.’ ”

Haldane also knew that Churchill would be missed far sooner than either he or Brockie, or any other man in the prison. Not only was he the son of Lord Randolph, but he had made himself known, incessantly and doggedly, to every high-ranking official in the Transvaal. “
I do not exaggerate when I say that the major part of the anxiety which I felt at this time about the success of our escape was due to his accession to the party,” Haldane wrote. “With Brockie only as my associate there was nothing to fear, but with a third accomplice and that accomplice the talkative Churchill, the situation was a very different one.”

Finally, with Churchill relentlessly pressing him, Haldane told him that because he had come up with the plan with Brockie, he would have to consult him before making a decision. Knowing before he even asked what Brockie’s reaction would be, Haldane approached him when they were alone one day.
Brockie had the same objections Haldane did—Churchill was unfit, too famous, and he couldn’t keep a secret—but, if anything, he felt them even more strongly. He wanted nothing to do with Churchill.

Haldane’s conscience, however, was weighing heavily on him. He told Brockie that Churchill had been on the armored train because of him, and he could not “
repay him by leaving him in the lurch.” He would make it clear to Churchill that neither he nor Brockie wanted him to come with them, but he would leave the final decision up to him.

When Haldane pulled Churchill aside, he was blunt. “
I did not hide from him,” he later wrote, “how greatly, in my opinion, his presence would add to the risk of capture.” Neither Haldane and Brockie’s reluctance, however, nor the additional danger he posed gave Churchill a moment’s hesitation. He would join the escape. Haldane knew that this sudden change in their plans could prove disastrous, but he could see no way out of it. “The wine was drawn,” he wrote, “and it had to be drunk.”

CHAPTER 18

“I SHALL GO ON ALONE”

A
lthough Haldane and Brockie had slowly and carefully planned their escape, they chose the date spontaneously. When they woke on the morning of December 11, they decided, this was the day. “
These things,” Churchill understood, “are best done on the spur of the moment.”

As eager as Churchill was to rejoin the war, and as confidently as he had spoken not just of escape but of wholesale revolt, now that the time had finally come, he was sick with anxiety. He hated the idea of “
stealing secretly off in the night like a guilty thief,” and he could not help but think of the ZARPs’ highly accurate Lee-Metford rifles, which, at a range of just fifteen yards, would certainly not miss their target. Churchill had also begun to think about what life would be like on the run. If they made it over the fence alive, he knew that he could look forward to nothing better than “severe hardship and suffering.” Worse, he was now willing to admit, there was little hope of success. “I passed the afternoon,” he wrote, “in positive terror.”

Churchill also had a lingering suspicion that Haldane and Brockie were not telling him everything. Although paranoia was one of the most common symptoms of barbed-wire disease, in this case at least, Churchill was right. His partners in escape were very consciously
keeping the full details of their plan from their “talkative friend.” After making it very clear to Churchill that he expected him to follow orders, Haldane had told him “
in general terms what the plan was, but not in detail, as he would be in my company.” As far as Churchill knew, the plan covered only the escape and nothing else. “
Everything after this,” he wrote, “was vague and uncertain.”

Even with limited information, Churchill, as Haldane and Brockie had feared, was constitutionally incapable of keeping their plans secret. He immediately began telling the other prisoners that he was about to make his escape. “
Churchill is in a great state of excitement,” Haldane wrote in frustration in his diary, “and letting everyone know that he means going to-night.” Haldane had hoped to keep their plans quiet not only to lessen the risk of the guards finding out but also because he knew that there were officers who would be jealous and would worry that if they succeeded in escaping, those left behind would suffer.

Haldane and Brockie were also worried that Churchill, especially in his current nervous state, would make a sudden, potentially dangerous move that would jeopardize the entire plan. While he had never questioned Churchill’s bravery, Haldane knew that his friend was not as judicious as he could have hoped, or as their escape attempt would demand. “
I perhaps have seen Churchill in a situation of greater danger than have others, and can affirm with confidence that he possesses one at least of the attributes of his great ancestor,” Haldane wrote, referring to Churchill’s famously courageous forebear, the 1st Duke of Marlborough. “He can be splendidly audacious at times and, sometimes, at the wrong time.”

Churchill tried with little luck to while away the hours until dinner, when they planned to make their escape. He played chess and was “
hopelessly beaten.” He attempted to read one of his favorite authors, W. E. H. Lecky, an Irish historian who had written about everything from Jonathan Swift to the moral history of
Europe. Churchill had somehow obtained a volume of Lecky’s
History of England in the Eighteenth Century
, but even it couldn’t claim his attention. “For the first time in my life,” he wrote, “that wise writer wearied me.”

Finally, the time came. The sky grew dark, the dinner bell clanged, and the men began to file listlessly into the large, open room at the end of the wide hallway. It was the time of day that Churchill hated most at the Staats Model School. Each night, they “
crowded again into the stifling dining hall for the last tasteless meal of the barren day,” he wrote. “The same miserable stories were told again and again…until I knew how the others came to Pretoria as well as I knew my own story.”

On this night, for the first time, a current of excitement coursed through Churchill when the sun began to set. At ten minutes to 7:00, he and Haldane slipped away. They were accompanied by a few of the other officers, who knew what they intended to do and were willing to help them. Brockie would follow when he had received word from these men that his cohorts had made it over the fence.

Once in the yard, the men headed straight for the lavatory. A small, circular building, it was next to the iron paling and in that crucial sliver of darkness that Haldane and Brockie were counting on to conceal them. Although night had fallen, the electric lamps were on, flooding the enclosure with a blue-white light that left only a few, velvety black shadows. As the men strode across the grass, passing the tents of the soldier-servants and then those of the ZARPs, no one stopped them.

Nonchalantly entering the lavatory, they quickly closed the door and peered through a small gap in the metal casing. From their hiding place, they could see one of the ZARPs standing directly across from the section of fence they hoped to climb. Most nights, the guard would eventually leave, moving toward the double row of trees that lined the fence just north of the lavatory. On this night, however, he seemed maddeningly content to stay in his corner.

One by one, the other officers left the lavatory, hoping that the guard would believe that it was now empty and would himself move
on to another part of the enclosure. Breath held, hearts racing, Haldane and Churchill waited in silence for what seemed to Haldane to be a quarter of an hour and to Churchill two hours, but the sentry never moved. Finally, the two men put their heads together for a whispered conference. It was no use, they decided. They would have to try another night.

As Churchill climbed back into bed that night, still in his dormitory in the Staats Model School, he was overwhelmed not with anger or frustration but with “
a most unsatisfactory feeling of relief.” He could not help but be grateful that the tension and uncertainty of the day had at last slipped off his shoulders. At the same time, he steeled himself to take up the yoke once again as soon as the sun rose. “
I was determined,” he wrote, “that nothing should stop my taking the plunge the next day.”