SOUTH AFRICA: Admiral Under a Figtree

A mixed force of 200 bluejackets and Royal Marines tumbled out of motor lorries at Serowe, Bechuanaland last week, set up a strong wire barricade, a khaki tent fly for a canopy and unfolded two canvas chairs. A host of 15,000 chattering, grinning natives gathered round the fence, for on the chairs sat two mighty chieftains come to judge the native Chief Tshekedi.

The ranking senior of the two British officers on the folding chairs was a mighty chieftain indeed. Vice Admiral Edward Radcliffe Garth Russell Evans is one of the most distinguished officers in the British Navy. Born 52 years ago, he is the Lieutenant Evans known to every British schoolboy as the second-in-command of the famed Scott expedition to the Antarctic in 1910-12. The South Pole did not end Lieutenant Evans’ heroism. During the War he was in command of the Broke when that destroyer and the Swift fought off six German destroyers in 1917. Three times since the War he has been given medals for saving life at sea. He has been C.-in-C. of the Australian Navy and has written a number of healthy adventure stories for boys. What took this most gallant officer to the blazing heat of Bechuanaland was the disgraceful conduct of a lecherous Scotsman known as Phineas Mackintosh.

Bechuanaland is officially native territory. Lewd Phineas Mackintosh took advantage of that fact to marry a blackamoor (a crime in the Union of South Africa), and to seduce numerous other Bamangwato tribeswomen.

Regent of the Bamangwato tribe is a handsome young man known as Tshekedi. He was educated in Britain at great expense, speaks English like an actor. His administration had been exemplary but, faced with the case of lewd Phineas Mackintosh, he ordered him tried by a native court, had him flogged within an inch of his life.

There was no question of lewd Phineas’ guilt. He had admitted everything. But if Britons should allow natives to try them, there would soon be no Britons in Africa. Admiral Evans, now acting High Commissioner for Bechuanaland, and the Resident Commissioner Col. Charles Fernand Rey, went up with their Marines to try Chief Tshekedi.

Chief Tshekedi, backed by a corps of lawyers, argued his case most fluently, adding considerably to the brilliance of the scene by appearing throughout the trial in a pair of pink-striped pajamas from Bond Street. The hero of the Antarctic mopped his brow under the withered fig-tree and gave judgment: 1) Lewd Phineas was banished from Bechuanaland forever. 2) For daring to punish a white man, Chief Tshekedi was removed from the Bamangwato tribe, exiled from his tribal lands. Admiral Evans pronounced the verdict on Chief Tshekedi as sympathetically as possible:

“It appears that you are an extremely capable and good chief, able to deal with your people and to lead them, but you admit flogging a European. . . . You have set a very bad example.”

While Chief Tshekedi appealed the decision to the Colonial Ministry, his mother, the Dowager Queen of Bamangwato, cabled King George:

“O King, release for me the boy. I am undone and the tribe is undone. This is my weeping, my master. O let it be regarded.”