State: Victoria, Australia
Issued on: Return
Date of presentation: 15/01/1901
Number issued: 1
Gold medal, suitably inscribed, to:
2nd Victorian (Mounted Rifles) Contingent –
226 Private Francis Edward DUREAU
Presentation made at the Windsor Hotel, Albert Park, Melbourne.
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Sydney Evening News, 19th January 1901
ESCAPING FROM THE BOERS.
HOW THE PLAN FAILED.
Private Frank DUREAU, of the Second Victorian Contingent, who returned from South Africa on 5th instant, was welcomed home and presented with a gold medal by a number of Albert Park residents at the Windsor Hotel on Tuesday evening.
Whilst scouting at Diamond Hill with five others, an engagement resulted in one of his comrades being shot, and four, including himself, were captured and sent to Nooitgedacht. At this place there were in all 1,800 British prisoners. They were camped on the open veldt, without shelter or blankets. The camp was enclosed by three rows of barbed wire entanglements, and was brilliantly lighted by electricity, which made the place so secure that a guard of 60 Boers was sufficient to render escape very difficult of accomplishment. The Boers displayed, a rancorous antipathy to the Australians, whom they could always single out among the British “Tommies” in the camp. On one occasion when they were exchanging chaff with the sentries, one of the Boers scored by remarking, “Oh, yes, dey’re Australians, and dey know de inside of de Melbourne Gaol”. After enduring the hardship of cold nights and insufficient nourishment — they were fed on barley and rice — DUREAU and a dozen others determined to attempt escape by scooping a tunnel under the barbed wire. This work was carried on with the aid of an ingenious code of signals, several of the men being told off at critical stages of the task to engage the attention of the sentries by negotiating for tobacco. The tunnel was completed in a week; but on the night the escape was planned to take place a rather amusing miscalculation led to its discovery. After some of the prisoners had crept through, one of the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, who was very stout, crawled into the aperture, but he became so jammed in the narrow entrance that he could neither advance nor retreat. The noise he made in his frantic efforts to release himself were heard by the sentry, who called out, “Stahnd! Who goes dah!” The commandant was summoned, and an investigation revealed the subterranean exit, and the unhappy Highlander, who was at once placed in the “Trunk”, a railway carriage, which was used as a cell for the most troublesome prisoners. The little scheme having failed, the prisoners, with the exception of a few who managed to get away, had to possess themselves in patience, until the turn of events brought about their voluntary release by their captors.
