They were satisfied that great improvements had been made, but they did not see the volunteer nurses or Dr. Neethling, although Mr. Cinatti asked three or four times for Miss Findlay and all the Consuls asked to see Dr. Neethling. These good people were not forthcoming, and there was so very much to see that it was time for the sumptuous lunch, with which General Maxwell treated the Consuls at the Railway Station, before further questions could be asked.
On the return journey General Maxwell inquired of Mr. Cinatti what he thought of the Camps, to which Mr. Cinatti replied, with that quaint mixture of pathos and humour which characterised him:
"General, your tiffin was a beauty, but your Camp--was very sad!"
Mrs. van Warmelo laughed when Hansie repeated these words to her and said:
"Oh, you have no idea how funny he is," and then she related the following incident to her daughter with great relish:
After she had drawn up the first petition, she was out driving one afternoon with Mrs. General Joubert in the latter's carriage, going from house to house to get the signatures to the petition, and on the Sunnyside bridge they found the three inseparable Consuls, Aubert, Cinatti, and Nieuwenhuis, out for their daily constitutional, leaning over the railings and looking down into the stream below. Approaching the bridge from the opposite direction were Lord Kitchener and his A.D.C. on horseback, and the three parties met, as luck would have it, in the centre of the bridge.
"The Consuls took off their hats in greeting to the ladies in the carriage, and then turned in salutation to Lord Kitchener, but I wish you could have seen the look Mr. Cinatti gave me, Hansie, as he glanced from the document in my hands to Lord Kitchener's retreating form. It spoke volumes, and I had the greatest difficulty in preserving my gravity."
It was in the winter of 1901, while Hansie was at the Irene Concentration Camp, as one of six volunteer nurses from Pretoria, that Mrs. van Warmelo began her first adventures with the spies, and it has always been a source of keen regret to Hansie that she was not in Pretoria at the time. But one cannot have everything, and the knowledge she gained in the Camp was more valuable to her than any other experience she went through during the war.