Mocke

The British South Africa Police of Southern Rhodesia has been fortunate in having many members who wrote interesting accounts of their experiences in the Force especially in the early days.One of the greatest of these if not the greatest was Eben Mocke. Writing under various non-de-plume such as 1437! (his regimental number) and Pioneer he was one of the most prolific contributors to the BSAP Magazine The Outpost whose editor Alan Stock met Eben and escorted him to Bulawayo to meet the bushman Cwai whom Mocke had not seen for fifty years since they had encountered each other during the curse of a patrol described by Mocke in his master-piece description of bush-patrolling-Kalahari Patrol.Eben's stories spanned the years from the Boer and First World Wars on into the seventies. In his submission to the National Archives of Rhodesia he gave valuable information on the late Pioneer period of the country.Letters from his contemporaries are included in this book some of them critical but all confirming what a great veldsman he was.