A CONSULAR VISIT TO IRENE CAMP The story of the petitions, related in the previous chapter, had, as I have said before, taken place during the time of Hansie's sojourn at Irene. She knew nothing about it at the time because, naturally, her mother's letters contained no hint of the agitation with the Consuls at Pretoria, and she was absorbed in her own "agitations" in the Camp, her stormy interviews with the Commandant, her hopeless struggles against disease and death. If ever a Concentration Camp was mismanaged, Irene was, and the six volunteer nurses, not being paid servants, but having taken up their work for love and at no small sacrifice to themselves, left no stone unturned to bring about the necessary improvements. How futile their poor little efforts were! How powerless they found themselves against the tide of wilful misunderstanding, deliberate neglect, unpardonable mismanagement! The number of deaths in the Camps increased every day, and Hansie, wiping the hoar-frost from her hair when she woke, half-frozen, in her tent, wondered how many of her little patients had been mercifully released by death that night. For always, when she resumed her work, there were _childish_ forms stretched out in their last sleep. One morning, when she found that there had been five deaths during the night, in her ward alone, she took the train to Pretoria, straight to General Maxwell's office. "Come and see for yourself, General. The people are starving, and they lie on the cold ground with little or no covering. Fuel they have nothing to speak of, medical comforts are always out of stock----" With a heavy frown he asked: "Why are these things not reported to me?" "I don't know," she answered miserably. "We thought you knew. We can do nothing with the Commandant----" A great deal more was said on both sides, revelations, not to be repeated here, made by the unhappy girl, and the Governor's sympathetic face grew stern with righteous indignation as she proceeded. "I will investigate the matter for myself," he said. "But you look ill--why don't you come home and take a good rest?" "I am only sick with misery, General; but if you will speak to the Commandant and insist on better management in the Camp, we may still be able to save a great many lives. There is no time to lose. If the people are not provided with better food and warmer covering during this intensely cold weather, the mortality will be something appalling next month." A few days later, one beautifully crisp and clear Sunday morning, General Maxwell and his A.D.C., Major Hoskins, rode over to Irene to pay the Camp a surprise visit--and a "surprise" it must have been indeed, of no pleasant nature, to the Commandant, judging by his black looks afterwards.