Prisoner-of-War Camps Overseas

The young Joubert Reitz gave expression to the feeling of grief and longing of the approximate 26000 Boers who were sent to camps, forts and goals in Natal, the Cape coast, St. Helena, Bermuda, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and India as prisoners of war in the following poem:

The Searchlight

When the searchlight from the gunboat
Throws its rays upon my tent
Then I think of home and comrades
And the happy days I spent
In the country where I come from
And where all I love are yet.
Then I think of things and places
And of scenes I'll ne'er forget
Then a face comes up before me
Which will haunt me to the last
And I think of things that have been
And happiness that's past
And only then I realize, How much my freedom meant
When the searchlight from the gunboat
Cast it`s rays upon my tent