Gert Marais and his mare ambled along the road between Kareeboschleegte and Maraisburg. He would reach his destination just after 9. 30 a.m. It was the beginning of a beautiful day and he was on a mission which excited the rebellious French blood in him.
By night fall Gert Marais would be one of four men charged with carrying arms against Her Majesty the Queen in the Eastern Cape Colony but, all the young Boer carried with him that day on his ride to Maraisburg was a wire clipper in a thick canvass bag bumping harmlessly alongside his saddle. He was unarmed. His mission, like that of any number of Dutch speaking farmers in the vicinity of Cradock, was to weave a net of deception which would satisfy the British on the following day, February 9th. On this day, a Saturday, every farmer in the district was commanded by Martial Law, to hand in his horse to the British army. The problem was that many farmers would not have a horse to hand in. It would be many miles away with a Boer rebel seated in its saddle. Farmers like Gert Marais could not explain this to the British soldiers, many of whom were not English but neighbours, brothers or brothers-in-law. These soldiers would know the truth, of course, so the lie had to be constructed in such a way that it could not be faulted in a court of law. And that is why Gert Marais was on his way to Maraisburg early on the morning of February 8th, to spin a lie about his movements and those of the other farmers in the plot so that no court could convict them for disobeying military orders.
Today this reasoning sounds a little far fetched, a little like a lie itself, but in 1901 every man who stood against the British Empire lived by long and complex lies.
The truth and the lie on the morning Gert Marais made his way to Maraisburg were these. A unit of Boer rebels was in the vicinity of Maraisburg and Cradock collecting horses for the Orange River Colony commando to which they were attached. Their base camp was in the koppies behind the main house on the farm, Leeuwdans which belonged to a Louis Botha. This old farmer had two sons still at home. Philip Botha was fifteen and too young by his parents’ standards to fight. Jacobus was militant and adamant that he would join the Free Staters, but first he must act as guide and scout for the men seeking horses.
Leeuwdans was home to one other farmer of significance to the story, Andries Coetzer. He was married to one of the Botha girls. While Louis Botha hosted the rebels on his farm, Andries organised and orchestrated the collection of the horses. He contacted all the farmers he could trust. They were asked to take their horses to Pram Koppen. Each man was sent a note in code when the time was ready for him to deliver the horse. The code was unimaginative: I¹ve found your goats, come and fetch them, or: Have seen your cow wandering about some fields. No matter how crude the the message was, each farmer knew that he had to take his horse to Pram Koppen without delay.
By the evening of February 7th, sixteen or so horses had been collected. During the night the horses were driven across Roodekuilsleegte to Leeuwdans and from there into the koppies behind the farmyard by Jacobus Botha and the rebels. The time had come to summon Gert Marais, and Stephanus van der Linde from Roodekuilsleegte. Gert discovered that the bull he owned jointly with his brother-in-law, Johannes Grobbelaar, was missing and seen near Leeuwdans. Stephanus van der Linde was no less surprised to learn that his goats had been wandering about Leeuwdans. Both men left their farms shortly after breakfast to respond to Andries Coetzer’s messages, but things were already going horribly wrong for the rebel well-wishers.
Even as Gert Marais trotted into Maraisburg and was seen by the street keeper, Johannes Engelbrecht, a group of ten Cape Police under Sergeant Owen Paton had picked up the horses’ spoor at Pram Koppen. Unaware of the impending doom Gert Marais continued his journey to Philip De Wet’s house where, over a cup of coffee, he told of how he had received Andries Coetzer’s message which had been sent in the personal care of his younger brother Jan Coetzer. Gert also spoke of how he had warned his brother-in-law that he was about to cut the wire between Kareeboschleegte and Struisvogelsleegte and drive their bull through the opening to make its disappearance look somewhat authentic. The men chatted the day away because Gert Marais was only due at Leeuwdans later that afternoon, and he was, after all, creating an alibi. He was to meet with the rebel leader who had stayed over night with Louis Botha, and he was to leave his horse behind and return to Kareeboschleegte on foot. He would tell his family that he’d handed in his horse to the military at Maraisburg, and he would tell the military on the following day, what? The horse had dropped dead? Had run out of the paddock along with the bull? Had been stolen by the rebels? Again, we will never know because the story unfolded very differently from the simple plan of providing horses for rebels and alibis for the men who had donated the beasts.
By the time Gert Marais reached Leeuwdans the skirmish between the twenty or so rebels in the koppies and the police was over. One policeman was wounded and the others were milling around the property. The skirmish would not have occurred had the rebel leader, probably a field cornet, not panicked and fled from the house as the police approached the farmyard. Had he stayed and been passed off as an out-of-town cousin, Gert Marais, Andries Coetzer, Philip Botha and Stephanus van der Linde would have been free men.
Gert Marais knew there was trouble long before the farmhouse was in sight. The sound of gun fire tumbled across the open lands and echoed off the koppies. His first thought was to reach the house and then act as if he’d been there all along. He spurred his horse into a gallop but bolted straight into the arms of a policeman. Jonas Nongwana would arrest Stephanus van der Linde, Andries Coetzer and Philip Botha as well. All had had the same thought in mind when they heard the battle: reach Leeuwdans as quickly as possible and concoct an alibi.
The Cape Police studied the four captives. None was armed and each gave a legitimate reason for being where he was, legitimate that is from the perspective of a court of law. Two men, Andries Coetzer and Philip Botha were on foot, the other two mounted. All had been with witnesses at noon when the unknown rebel commander fled the farmhouse. All had family or friends who could swear that they were not in the koppies at one o’clock, or even two o’clock. But the Cape Police knew that they had rebel sympathisers on their hands and they knew equally as well that nothing they could present to a court of law would bring a conviction. And as the two groups faced each other in the kitchen at Leeuwdans someone who wore the badge of British authority began to comprehend what it would take to convict the farmers. That man could have been Sergeant Paton. He could have been Gert Marais’ relative by marriage, Sergeant Pieter Willem Durandt. That man would need the support of his colleagues, but that would not be difficult because in the room down the passage lay a dying man shot from the koppies during the opening stages of the skirmish. In those days killing a policeman was a heinous crime, and there were ten angry men in the kitchen because of that crime.
When the farmers’ preliminary hearing came before the Cradock magistrate on May 10, 1901, each and every policeman who stood up as witness swore under oath that he had arrived at Leeuwdans at 11 a.m. and not at noon on February 8th. Just a small adjustment of one hour, a tiny lie which made a liar of each witness in the stand who swore that he had been with one of the convicted men at twelve o’clock or one o’clock or two. And it was this, the smallest of the untruths in the web of lies which surrounds the events at Leeuwdans which would convict Gert Marais, Andries Coetzer, Philip Botha and Stephanus van der Linde of High Treason, where no amount of horse dealing and rebel sympathising ever could.
Copyright H.A. Vallance
Source: Attorney General Group: Treason Trials. Cape Town Archives Repository, South Africa.
Filed under: Boer Soldiers, Cape Rebels , anglo boer war
Fascinating to read about the details involved in weaving the web of the “community lie.” The element of chance is also striking (the Cape rebel leader who runs). Of course the circumstances (as well as the name) recall Leipoldt’s “Oom Gert.”
That’s interesting, Jenny. I had not made the Leipoldt connection. I must look it up. There were two Gert Marais’ in that area at the time – this Gert and my great grandfather who was in a manner of speaking exiled in the Mossel Bay/George area. I came across this file when I was looking for my grandfather. I would imagine that the story was told and re-told as stories are and became something of a legend. It does lend itself to that sort of thing.