This is fiction but covers a lot of historic facts on the period of the Boer War and the British colonial attitude 23/12/2023
The narrator was born in 1882 in Assam where her parents ran a tea plantation. Her mother died and her father sent her to live with his family in London at Inkerman House in 1897 when their was a heavy fog in the city. She was meant to stay 3 months but an earthquake and avalanche her had killed her father. The Aunt Caroline who had been so busy training her to become a high class lady that she felt trapped. to enter the marriage market.
The aunt belonged to the Primrose League was an organization for spreading Conservative principles in Great Britain. It was founded in 1883. It later led the suffragettes . Valentine mother had been an actress.
1893 Shangani Patrol in Southern Rhodesia where 34 members of the army died fighting after being ambushed by Matabele under Lobengulu.
The Boer War broke out and a regiment of volunteer was called for, to fight for the British Empire which is the greatest Empire the world has seen. The city of London would finance the 1000 volunteers. Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley were under siege. His father sighed Reginald up to volunteer the get him to make something of himself. A bicycle corps would be developed as so many horses had been killed. One of the British excuses was that outlanders were not given a vote in the SA Republic, this was a time when women in England had no vote.
Aunt Caroline was hit by a van and killed. As a widower , the uncle wanted to take an adventure to New Guinea to find a great butterfly. She took Reggies uniform and she went into regiment in his army unit to save effeminate Reggie who would not cope as a sodier. Bramdaante was the greatest female knight in Literature. She took Reggies place and they were taken to Southhampton on the ship to Cape Town, stopping over in Madeira. They reached CT in 21 days.
Good-bye Dolly Gray was the great patriotic song during the Boer War.
Reggie said "one gets married because you are supposed to or it is expected of you"
Frank has book of photos of Barron William von Gloeden His work, both landscapes and nudes, drew wealthy tourists to Sicily, particularly gay men uncomfortable in northern Europe,
Valentine "swagger a little and drink a lot and I was a man. They were given a little book to learn Dutch with. There purpose was to stop SA being Dutch and make it part of the Empire. Now that gold had been found in the Transvaal Britain wanted control of this wealth. "War seldom enters but where wealth allures."
Canadians , Australians and New Zealanders mixed with English , Scots and a few Irish and were at the Green Point Camp. A soldier attacked Valantine and claimed she was a mandrake , molly , bugger he's a bloody Sodomite but she was protected by her friend Cooper.
They were taken to De Aar where they had some training , the book describes a locusts infestation that year. Of the volunteers many had different reasons for coming adventure, , ones wife had left him with his son. There were American press photographers there. The relief of Kimberley was a big article in the press with a photo of Field Marshal Lord Roberts.
The first signs of battle were cartridge cases littering the fields, then looting farms became common practice. The Boer farmers had colonized vast areas but could not spread further north because of the Tzetse fly infestation there and the fever it caused..
Condy's Fluid was a general disinfectant used on wounds. Dying soldiers whether Boer or Brit their final cries were for their mothers. The news of the relief of Mafeking did not cause much cheer to the exhausted soldiers. The Boer farmers were all away fighting and the farms were in the possession of women and children. The battle of Doornskop was the last stand by the Boers to stop the Brits getting into Johannesburg. Today this is part of Soweto.
Hundreds of soldiers were ill with enteric fever ,dysentery and were dying of Pneumonia and it filled every hospital. Relative few died of wounds compared to those of fever. There were Indian recruits that were stretcher bearers. When Lord Roberts gave a speech in front of the Kruger Statue in Pretoria they thought the War was over as they had captured the Boer capital , but the Boers did not surrender.
1885 Criminal Amendment Act under which Oscar Wild was jailed as a homosexual. Reggies friend Frank is jailed for this same reason." This French and pagan plague has crept into the healthy fields of English life."
Valentine is helped recover by a Boers wife whose male servant treat her knowing she is a women. There was no communication as wires and railway lines were cut.
The British begin slaughtering the meager livestock and destroying the farms and rounding up the women and children to get the Boers to capitulate. These people were rounded up in camps at Klerksdorp, Volksrust , Bronkhorstspruit, Betulie and some were sent to Ceylon, Bermuda and St Helena, where women and children died.
Valentine gets out by reverting to a women and is sent home to London.
Reggie ends up in an asylum there were many in those days at Caterham , Darenth and Leavesden.
The book has a strange ending. When Reggie hears he was supposed to have died honorable in S. Africa he took the opportunity to hang himself and Valentine organizes a military funeral for him.
She now remembers that she was supposed to help the Boer women and takes a stand in that. She has dealings with the Primrose League who are worried about her reputation and laughs at them. With her fighting experience has little time for these Victorian values. Now Valentine works at women's rights and suffrage..
The Imperial Adventure was paid for by the British tax payer, with British soldiers dying to benefit the British millionaires like Cecil Rhodes.
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