As the fuse that had ignited this world war, the fighting at the Cape of Good Hope had now entered its final stages.
Forced to watch one line of defense after another being breached by the enemy, powerless to do anything, Lieutenant General Stad had been worn haggard by torment.
Unlike the last South African War, when the British had naval fire support, the Cape of Good Hope was now an isolated island.
Whenever the Royal Navy arrived, the enemy air force followed close behind, leaving it no room to perform.
To reinforce the Cape of Good Hope, Britain had paid the grievous price of three warships and eighteen merchant vessels sunk in barely two months.
It was not that the enemy air force was especially formidable; the key was that its assists were deadly. Of Britain's many sunken vessels, not a single one had been sunk directly by the enemy.
Even the three warships that went down had first been damaged by the enemy, only to perish beneath the waves.
There was no helping it. The Cape of Despair saw waves over two meters high all year round; waves six or seven meters high were commonplace, and typhoons above Force 11 struck from time to time.
Even intact ships faced perils upon perils while sailing there. If the hull was damaged, there was even less to say—whether one could bring back one's life depended entirely on God's blessing.
To evade attacks by the Holy Roman Air Force, logistical resupply had been forced into the nighttime. The waves were dangerous enough by day; at night, there was no need to elaborate.
Fortunately, it was summer in the Southern Hemisphere. If it had been winter, with raging monsoons and elusive "killer waves," the very thought of it was suffocating.
Rubbing his