LIFE IN A BESIEGED TOWN (_continued_)
"And so we sat tight."--_Despatch from Mafeking to War
Office._
February came and went without producing very much change in our
circumstances, and yet, somehow, there was a difference observable as
the weeks passed. People looked graver; a tired expression was to be
noted on many hitherto jovial countenances; the children were paler and
more pinched. Apart from the constant dangers of shells and stray
bullets, and the knowledge that, when we were taking leave of any friend
for a few hours, it might be the last farewell on earth--apart from
these facts, which constituted a constant wear and tear of mind, the
impossibility of making any adequate reply to our enemy's bombardment
gradually preyed on the garrison. By degrees, also, our extreme
isolation seemed to come home to us, and not a few opined that relief
would probably never come, and that Mafeking would needs have to be
sacrificed for the greater cause of England's final triumph. Since
Christmas black "runners" had contrived to pass out of the town with
cables, bringing us on their return scrappy news and very ancient
newspapers. For instance, I notice in my diary that at the end of March
we were enchanted to read a _Weekly Times_ of January 5. On another
occasion the Boers vacated some trenches, which were immediately
occupied by our troops, who there found some Transvaal papers of a
fairly recent date, and actually a copy of the _Sketch_. I shall never
forget how delighted we were with the latter, and the amusement derived
therefrom compensated us a little for the accounts in the Boer papers of
General Buller's reverses on the Tugela. About the middle of February I
was enchanted to receive a letter from Mr. Rhodes, in Kimberley, which I
reproduce.
[Transcription of letter:
"Kimberly "Jan 12 / 1900
"DEAR LADY SARAH,
"Just a line to say I often think of you[.] I wonder do you
play bridge, it takes your mind off hospitals, burials and
shells. A change seems coming with Buller crossing the Tulega.
Jameson should have stopped at Bulawayo and relieved you from
North. He can do no good shut up in Ladysmith[.] I am doing a
little good here as I make De Beers purse pay for things
military cannot sanction[.] We have just made and fired a 4
inch gun, it is a success.
"Yrs (.).Rhodes]
This characteristic epistle seemed a link with the outer world, and to
denote we were not forgotten, even by those in a somewhat similar plight
to ourselves.
The natives and their splendid loyalty were always a source of interest.
Formed into a "cattle guard," under a white man named Mackenzie, the
young bloods did excellent service, and were a great annoyance to the
Boers by making daring sorties in order to secure some of the latter's
fat cattle. This particular force proudly styled itself "Mackenzie's
Black Watch." There were many different natives in Mafeking. Besides
the Baralongs before alluded to, we had also the Fingos, a very superior
race, and 500 natives belonging to different tribes, who hailed from
Johannesburg, and who had been forcibly driven into the town by Cronje
before the siege commenced. These latter were the ones to suffer most
from hunger, in spite of Government relief and the fact that they had
plenty of money; for they had done most of the trench-work, and had been
well paid. The reason was that they were strangers to the other natives,
who had their own gardens to supplement their food allowance, and blacks
are strangely unkind and hard to each other, and remain quite unmoved if
a (to them) unknown man dies of starvation, although he be of their own
colour.
The native stadt covered altogether an area of at least a square mile,
and was full of surprises in the shape of pretty peeps and rural
scenery. Little naked children used to play on the grass, pausing to
stare open-eyed at the passer-by, and men and women sat contentedly
gossiping in front of their huts. The whole gave an impression of
prosperity, of waving trees, green herbage, and running water, and was
totally different to the usual African landscape. To ride or drive
through it on a Sunday was quite a rest, when there was no risk of one's
illusions being dispelled by abominable shells, whose many visible
traces on the sward, in the shape of deep pear-shaped pits, were all the
same in evidence.
Standing in a commanding position among the thatched houses of the
picturesque native stadt was the Mission Church, of quaint shape, and
built of red brick, the foundation of which had been laid by Sir Charles
Warren in 1884. One Sunday afternoon we attended service in this
edifice, and were immensely struck with the devotion of the enormous
congregation of men and women, who all followed the service attentively
in their books. The singing was most fervent, but the sermon a little
tedious, as the clergyman preached in English, and his discourse had to
be divided into short sentences, with a long pause between each, to
enable the black interpreter at his side to translate what he said to
his listeners, who simply hung on his words.
All the natives objected most strongly to partaking of horse soup,
supplied by the kitchens, started by the C.O., as they declared it gave
them the same sickness from which the horses in Africa suffered, and
also that it caused their heads to swell. The authorities were therefore
compelled to devise some new food, and the resourceful genius of a
Scotchman introduced a porridge called "sowens" to the Colonel's notice.
This nutriment, said to be well known in the North of Scotland, was
composed of the meal which still remained in the oat-husks after they
had been ground for bread and discarded as useless. It was slightly
sour, but very wholesome, and enormously popular with the white and the
black population, especially with the latter, who preferred it to any
other food.
I must now mention the important item of supplies and how they were eked
out. The provisions sent to Mafeking by the Cape Government before the
war were only sufficient to feed 400 men for a little over a fortnight.
At that time a statement was made, to reassure the inhabitants, that the
Cape Ministry held themselves personally responsible for the security of
the railway in the colony. Providentially, the firm of Weil and Company
had sent vast stores to their depôt in the town on their own initiative.
This firm certainly did not lose financially by their foresight, but it
is a fact that Mafeking without this supply could have made no
resistance whatever. There were 9,000 human beings to feed, of which
7,000 were natives and 2,000 white people. It can therefore be imagined
that the task of the D.A.A.G. was not a light one. Up to April the town
consumed 4,099 tons of food-stuffs; 12,256 tons of oats, fodder, meal,
and flour; and 930 tons of fuel; making a total of 17,285 tons. Of
matches, the supply of which was soon exhausted, 35,400 boxes were
used, and to take their place tiny paraffin lamps were supplied to all,
which burnt night and day. Fortunately, the supply of liquid fuel was
very large, and it would have taken the place of coal if the siege had
been indefinitely prolonged. Among miscellaneous articles which were
luckily to be obtained at Weil's stores were 2 tons of gunpowder and
other ammunition, 132 rifles, insulated fuses, and electric dynamos for
discharging mines, etc.
About a month after the siege started, the C.O. placed an embargo on all
food-stuffs, and the distribution of rations commenced. From then onward
special days were allowed for the sale of luxuries, but always in
strictly limited quantities. At first the rations consisted of 1-1/4
pounds of meat and 1-1/4 pounds of bread, besides tea, coffee, sugar,
and rice. As time went on these were reduced, and towards the end of
March we only had 6 ounces of what was called bread and 1 pound of fresh
meat, when any was killed; otherwise we had to be content with bully
beef. As to the "staff of life," it became by degrees abominable and
full of foreign substances, which were apt to bring on fits of choking.
In spite of this drawback, there was never a crumb left, and it was
remarkable how little the 6 ounces seemed to represent, especially to a
hungry man in that keen atmosphere.
One day it was discovered there was little, if any, gold left of the
£8,000 in specie that was lodged at the Standard Bank at the beginning
of the siege. This sum the Boers had at one time considered was as good
as in their pockets. It was believed the greater portion had since been
absorbed by the natives, who were in the habit of burying the money they
received as wages. In this quandary, Colonel Baden-Powell designed a
paper one-pound note, which was photographed on to thick paper of a
bluish tint, and made such an attractive picture that the Government
must have scored by many of them never being redeemed.
It was not till Ash Wednesday, which fell that year on the last day of
February, that we got our first good news from a London cable, dated ten
days earlier. It told us Kimberley was relieved, that Colesberg was in
our hands, and many other satisfactory items besides. What was even of
greater importance was a message from Her Majesty Queen Victoria to
Colonel Baden-Powell and his garrison, applauding what they had done,
and bidding them to hope on and wait patiently for relief, which would
surely come. This message gave especial pleasure from its being couched
in the first person, when, as was universally remarked, the task of
sending such congratulations might so easily have been relegated to one
of Her Majesty's Ministers. I really think that no one except a
shipwrecked mariner, cast away on a desert island, and suddenly
perceiving a friendly sail, could have followed our feelings of delight
on that occasion. We walked about thinking we must be dreaming, and
finding it difficult to believe that we were in such close contact with
home and friends. In less than ten minutes posters were out, and eager
groups were busy at the street-corners, discussing the news, scrappy
indeed, and terribly deficient in all details, but how welcome, after
all the vague native rumours we had had to distract us during the past
weeks! We were content then to wait any length of time, and our lives
varied very little as the weeks slipped by. The bombardment was resumed
with vigour, and the old monster gun cruised right round the town and
boomed destruction at us from no less than five different points of
vantage. When the shelling was very heavy, we used to say to ourselves,
"What a good thing they are using up their ammunition!" when again for a
few days it was slack, we were convinced our foes had had bad news. What
matter if our next information was that the Boers had been seen throwing
up their hats and giving vent to other visible expressions of delight:
we had passed a few peaceful hours.
Many casualties continued to take place; some were fatal and tragic, but
many and providential were the escapes recorded. Among the former, one
poor man was blown to bits while sitting eating his breakfast; but the
same day, when a shell landed in or near a house adjacent to my
bomb-proof, it merely took a cage containing a canary with it through
the window, while another fragment went into a dwelling across the
street, and made mince-meat of a sewing-machine and a new dress on which
a young lady had been busily engaged. She had risen from her pleasant
occupation but three minutes before. The coolness of the inhabitants, of
both sexes, was a source of constant surprise and admiration to me, and
women must always be proud to think that the wives and daughters of the
garrison were just as conspicuous by their pluck as the defenders
themselves. Often of a hot afternoon, when I was sitting in my
bomb-proof, from inclination as well as from prudence--for it was a far
cooler resort than the stuffy iron-roofed houses--while women and
children were walking about quite unconcernedly outside, I used to hear
the warning bell ring, followed by so much scuffling, screaming, and
giggling, in which were mingled jokes and loud laughter from the men,
that it made me smile as I listened; then, after the explosion, they
would emerge from any improvised shelter and go gaily on their way, and
the clang of the blacksmith's anvil, close at hand, would be resumed
almost before the noise had ceased and the dust had subsided. One day a
lady was wheeling her two babies in a mail-cart up and down the wide
road, while the Boers were busily shelling a distant part of the
defences. The children clapped their hands when they heard the peculiar
siren and whistle of the quick-firing Krupp shells, followed by dull
thuds, as they buried themselves in the ground. On my suggesting to her
that it was not a very favourable time to air the children, she agreed,
and said that her husband had just told her to go home, which she
proceeded leisurely to do. Another morning the cattle near the convent
were being energetically shelled, and later I happened to see the Mother
Superior, and commiserated with her in having been in such a hot corner.
"Ah, shure!" said the plucky Irish lady, "the shells were dhroppin' all
round here; but they were only nine-pounders, and we don't take any
notice of them at all." No words can describe the cheerful, patient
behaviour of those devoted Sisters through the siege. They bore
uncomplainingly all the hardships and discomforts of a flooded
bomb-proof shelter, finally returning to their ruined home with any
temporary makeshifts to keep out the rain; and whereas, from overwork
and depression of spirits, some folks were at times a little difficult
to please, not a word of complaint during all those months ever came
from the ladies of the convent. They certainly gave an example of
practical religion, pluck, charity, and devotion.
And so the moons waxed and waned, and Mafeking patiently waited, and,
luckily, had every confidence in the resource and ability of Colonel
Baden-Powell. An old cannon had been discovered, half buried in the
native stadt, which was polished up and named "The Lord Nelson," from
the fact of its antiquity. For this gun solid cannon-balls were
manufactured, and finally fired off at the nearest Boer trenches; and
the first of these to go bounding along the ground certainly surprised
and startled our foes, which was proved by their quickly moving a part
of their laager. In addition a rough gun, called "The Wolf," was
actually constructed in Mafeking, which fired an 18-pound shell 4,000
yards. To this feat our men were incited by hearing of the magnificent
weapon which had been cast by the talented workmen of Kimberley in the
De Beers workshops. In spite of there being nothing but the roughest
materials to work with, shells were also made, and some Boer projectiles
which arrived in the town without exploding were collected, melted down,
and hurled once more at our enemy. Truly, there is no such schoolmaster
as necessity.
On Sundays we continued to put away from us the cares and worries of the
week, and the Church services of the various denominations were
crowded, after an hour devoted to very necessary shopping. During the
whole siege the Sunday afternoon sports on the parade-ground were a most
popular institution; when it was wet, amusing concerts were given
instead at the Masonic Hall. On these occasions Colonel Baden-Powell was
the leading spirit, as well as one of the principal artistes, anon
appearing in an impromptu sketch as "Signor Paderewski," or, again, as a
coster, and holding the hall entranced or convulsed with laughter. He
was able to assume very various rôles with "Fregoli-like" rapidity; for
one evening, soon after the audience had dispersed, suddenly there was
an alarm of a night attack. Firing commenced all round the town, which
was a most unusual occurrence for a Sunday night. In an instant the man
who had been masquerading as a buffoon was again the commanding officer,
stern and alert. The tramp of many feet was heard in the streets, which
proved to be the reserve squadron of the Protectorate Regiment, summoned
in haste to headquarters. A Maxim arrived, as by magic, from somewhere
else, the town guard were ordered to their places, and an A.D.C. was
sent to the hall, where a little dance for the poor overworked hospital
nurses was in full swing, abruptly to break up this pleasant gathering.
It only remained for our defenders to wish the Boers would come on,
instead of which the attack ended in smoke, after two hours' furious
volleying, and by midnight all was quiet again.
During the latter part of this tedious time Colonel Plumer and his
gallant men were but thirty miles away, having encompassed a vast
stretch of dreary desert from distant Bulawayo. This force had been
"under the stars" since the previous August, and had braved hardships of
heat, fever districts, and flooded rivers, added to many a brush with
the enemy. These trusty friends were only too anxious to come to our
assistance, but a river rolled between--a river composed of deep
fortified trenches, of modern artillery, and of first-rate marksmen with
many Mausers. One day Colonel Plumer sent in an intrepid scout to
consult with Colonel Baden-Powell. This gentleman had a supreme contempt
for bullets, and certainly did not know the meaning of the word "fear,"
but the bursting shells produced a disagreeable impression on him. "Does
it always go on like that?" he asked, when he heard the vicious hammer
of the enemy's Maxim. "Yes," somebody gloomily answered, "it always goes
on like that, till at length we pretend to like it, and that we should
feel dull if it were silent."
Although the soldiers in Mafeking were disposed to grumble at the small
part they seemed to be playing in the great tussle in which England was
engaged, the authorities were satisfied that for so small a town to have
kept occupied during the first critical month of the war 10,000--and at
later stages never less than 2,000--Boers, was in itself no small
achievement. We women always had lots to do. When the hospital work was
slack there were many Union Jacks to be made--a most intricate and
tiresome occupation--and these were distributed among the various forts.
We even had a competition in trimming hats, and a prize was given to the
best specimen as selected by a competent committee. In the evenings we
never failed to receive the Mafeking evening paper, and were able to
puzzle our heads over its excellent acrostics, besides frequently
indulging in a pleasant game of cards.
In the meantime food was certainly becoming very short, and on April 3 I
cabled to my sister in London as follows: "Breakfast to-day, horse
sausages; lunch, minced mule, curried locusts. All well." Occasionally I
used to be allowed a tiny white roll for breakfast, but it had to last
for dinner too. Mr. Weil bought the last remaining turkey for £5, with
the intention of giving a feast on Her Majesty's birthday, and the
precious bird had to be kept under a Chubb's lock and key till it was
killed. No dogs or cats were safe, as the Basutos stole them all for
food. But all the while we were well aware our situation might have
been far worse. The rains were over, the climate was glorious, fever was
fast diminishing, and, in spite of experiencing extreme boredom, we knew
that the end of the long lane was surely coming.