Police Gazette Vol 2 No 1

leading the campaign in person against the Germans then, completely defeated them.

Colonel Trew, an experienced soldier in the war of 1899 - 1902, was in peculiarly close and continuous touch with General Botha throughout this double campaign.

The Government decided that Botha must have a Bodyguard to look after his safety in the field, and appointed Colonel (then Major) Trew, Commandant of Police, as its head. “Botha Treks" is the Colonel's story of those days.

Because of his very different job the soldier does not commonly shine with the pen.

This dapper and keen-eyed Australian, so well known in South Africa, here proves himself a surprising exception, however. Of the campaign which, in common with many others the present writer shared, he has written a plain and clear story, but keeping the high light always on the central figure, he has so successfully introduced conversation, incident, and pithy description that there emerges a new and lifelike close-up of his famous subject. That this is so all who ever knew or met Botha will agree, and, the test of such success, those who did not will be at once convinced.

IN EVERY MOOD It is what a man says that counts, and here we get Botha in every mood and surrounding: by camp fire, at night, in action, sad, jocular, worried; decisive, outspoken, thoughtful, angry; often surprising as are the great, but always in character.

Here is an incident during the Rebellion: We came on a place where several dead were lying (after the action that led to the final defeat of his old comrade De Wet. General Botha halted his horse beside one and said: "This is terrible. That was Commandant ------, he was one of my best men during the Boer War." Then with tears in his eyes: “You Englishmen will never understand how hard this is for me."

Though he was often silent, sometimes Louis Esselen, who had been his ADC in the SA War, would mention something that had happened in that contest that would excite his interest. Of Lord Roberts, to my surprise, he said: "He was a cruel man, and did not stick to his word. . . He was always issuing absurd proclamations, and then in about a week he would substitute another cancelling the former one."

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