_Week ending 28th October, 1899_
After a hard and anxious week, Sunday was indeed a day of rest. We
enjoyed it because we felt instinctively that an enemy who sincerely
believed that Providence was necessarily on his side, would leave us
unmolested on the Sabbath. We were therefore justified in feeling a
sense of immunity from stray shells and bullets. We enjoyed the day,
too, because it gave us time and opportunity to look about us; to make a
general inspection; and to pronounce the arrangements for the city's
defence satisfactory. The volunteer forces had assumed gratifying
proportions, and their eyes were all "right." Walls and buildings on the
outskirts of the town, which might serve as a cover for the invader--in
the improbable event of his drawing so near--or that might stand within
the zone of our gun-fire, had been ruthlessly levelled to the ground. A
high barbed wire fence surrounded the various camps, and the vigilant
piquet had orders to shoot down anybody who attempted to cross it. Every
imaginable precaution had been taken to hold the fort at all costs. The
rumour-monger had formally made his _debut_, and was busy drawing upon
the reservoirs of his excellent imagination, and disseminating
information gathered from a mystic source known only to himself. He knew
the exact day and hour of the entrance into Kimberley of the British
troops; he could detail their plans to the letter, and a lot more than
anybody else (including the British troops) concerning them. The
rumour-monger became a character, a siege character, an adventitious
celebrity, destined to receive attention from a facetious press and the
tongues of men. So the day passed, with plenty to encourage, plenty to
talk and laugh about, plenty to predict about, plenty to see and hear,
and as yet, thank goodness, plenty to eat and drink.
Early on Monday morning, a mounted detachment, accompanied by the
armoured train and two hundred men of the Lancashire Regiment, went
forth to reconnoitre. The procession was an imposing one; at least the
Boers encamped at Scholtz's Nek appeared to think so; they made no
attempt to interfere with it, and thus debarred the procession from
interfering with them.
But meanwhile domestic concerns were getting serious, and absorbing the
minds of the people. The grocers of Kimberley are a respectable and, in
the aggregate, a public-spirited body of citizens; they are men of
substance; most honourable; most humane, too; and, as events were to
show, most human. With fine foresight they detected in the conflagration
of patriotism which consumed the consumer, a chance of bettering
themselves. Having a constitutional right to do it, they took this tide
in their affairs at what they (rather hastily) conceived to be its
flood. Actuated by motives of the new ("enlightened") self-interest,
they had proceeded to run up the prices of their goods by nice and easy
gradations of from ten to twenty, thence to fifty, and were well on
their way to a hundred, per cent., when a thunderbolt, an unexpected
projectile, smashed the ring. It was a pity, in a way, for the process
of welding the ring, so to speak, had been carried out with admirable
skill. Rich folk, whose balances at the bank ran into six, and seven,
figures, had commenced operations; they were buying up supplies of all
and sundry, and hanging the expense. People with a thousand or two were
nowhere in the aristocratic rush, and they waxed indignant; they could
buy a quantity of provisions, to be sure; but semi-millionaires could
buy so much more--a shop or two, perchance. Thus it was that the
"comfortable classes" deemed it their duty to protest. And right royally
did the common people, who had only the sweat of their brows, join in
the protest. The public, in fine, were thoroughly roused, and denounced
in unmeasured terms the conduct and the "enterprise" of the grocers. The
women were much alarmed; they collected together in wrathful groups to
enquire where the matter was to end, and with peculiar unanimity, not to
say satisfaction, to prophesy a revolution. This bound in the cost of
living brought us nearer to a state of panic than ever did the sharp
practice of the Boer artillery. The Colonel heard of it--what did he not
hear? Deputations waited on him; his intervention was solicited; he
agreed to intervene. And then came a splendid exhibition of the
autocracy of Martial Law. We had not yet seen all that it could do (far
from it!), and it was a pleasure, in the circumstances, to see the
Colonel put his foot down, since the step was highly approved and
ratified by the people.
Forth from Lennox Street, accordingly, another popular proclamation was
launched, A whole page of our local newspaper was commandeered for its
insertion. By virtue of the powers reposed in him, Colonel Kekewich
fixed the prices to be charged for "necessaries," such as tea, sugar,
coffee, meat (the butchers also had been brushing up their Shakespeare).
Goods were to be sold practically at ordinary rates; and if any
storekeeper charged more, or affected to be "sold out" of this, that, or
the other, the Colonel was to be told, and he would talk to the
storekeeper. There followed, of course, a grand slump. The combination
of the "upper" and "lower" middle-classes was irresistible. The
Commanding-Officer's prompt action was highly esteemed, and even those
who afterwards inveighed against him most severely (for other actions)
never denied him credit for it.
Paraffin oil is worthy of special mention. Coal not being much in
evidence in the diamond fields--where the sun is ever shining with all
its might--paraffin was an important factor in the culinary sphere.
When, therefore, a few gentlemen formed a syndicate, to vaunt their
loyalty in a crisis by cornering all the kerosene in town, another
outcry followed. They bought all they could lay hands on at market price
(sixteen and six per case), and next day imperturbably continued buying
at twenty-five shillings. On Tuesday the wide-awake vendors asked fifty
shillings, and were paid it cheerfully. Another sovereign was added to
each case of what remained on Wednesday, and the seventy shillings was
put down without a murmur. How much farther the bidding would have gone
will never be known, for a vicious little bird must needs tell the
Colonel all about it. That gentleman happened to be engaged in his
favourite (proclaiming) pastime; he sat ruminating on the high price of
coal, and evolving schemes to bring wood back to its proper level. The
latter article was what the poorer classes used as fuel. The Colonel had
no scruples about dotting down a reasonable figure for coal; but wood
was new to him; he sympathised with the woodman, yet could not spare the
tree. Water (sold in casks) had evinced propensities to bubble over, and
to prevent consequent waste it was necessary to make it simmer down to
its normal tepidity. Having settled these little difficulties, the
worried autocrat was about to affix his signature to the magic
manuscript, when the little feathered informer alighted on his shoulder
and warbled "_wacht-een-beitje_, what price oil?" The Colonel had no
hesitation in pouring it on troubled waters, by making eighteen
shillings the maximum charge per case.
What the feelings of the syndicate were is not recorded. There was only
one thing certain, the deal was not a profitable thing--for the
_buyers_. Rumour had it that one gentleman, "with a pigtail," had paid
fifty shillings each for two hundred cases. The story was false--rumour
is never quite right; the man wore no pigtail. A Celestial speculator
indeed he was, but he had long since discarded, if he had ever sported,
his national plait.
The afternoon brought a fight--a fight at last. Nothing less sensational
could explain the wave of excitement that set men, women, and children
struggling in a wild scramble for the debris heaps, which commanded a
view of the match. Yes; a battle at last, was the cry on all
sides,--varied with divers witticisms _apropos_ of the "beans" the
Boers were sure to be given. The military critic, perched high above
everybody else, held his glass to his eye, giving expression the while
to a paradoxical longing to be "blind," etc. He criticised, candidly,
the tactics displayed by both sides--but this chapter would never be
finished if I reproduced, in their entirety, the banalities of the
military critic.
The railway line had been torn up again, and a patrol of mounted men
under the command of Colonel Scott-Turner had been out since early
morning to superintend repairs. The repairs were soon effected, and
after the patrol had rested at Macfarlane's Farm it meandered in the
direction of Riverton. A large body of the enemy shortly became visible
to the right of Riverton, and after a little seductive manoeuvring on
the part of Turner's men, they were drawn within range of Turner's
rifles. The rifles went off; a few Boers toppled from their horses,
while the rest drew rein and rode back at a goodly speed.
Reinforcements, however, were galloping to their assistance, and soon a
lively duel was in full swing. Colonel Kekewich, who was an interested
spectator away back on the conning tower, thought he detected a movement
on the enemy's part to surround Turner; and to frustrate this design, he
forthwith despatched a "loaded" armoured train. The maxims (in the
armoured train) came into play, and spread confusion in the Boer ranks.
Their Commandant was killed and left behind on the field. The rifle duel
was maintained with dogged perseverance on both sides for some time
afterwards. We were not without losses--three men having been killed and
nineteen wounded. The enemy's casualties were estimated to be thirty.
Our men had conducted themselves throughout with conspicuous courage and
coolness, though many of them were quite new to the game of war. To the
Boer, too, a meed of praise is due; for, contrary to popular tradition,
he could--and did--fight a good fight on the open veld. Turner's force
returned to the city, well satisfied with their first brush with the
enemy. The news which appeared in a special edition of the _Diamond
Fields' Advertiser_, relative to the successful dash of Atkins at
Elandslaagte (Natal), added to the enthusiasm that prevailed during the
evening; and made optimists--there were no pessimists--more sanguine
than ever in regard to the speedy capitulation of the Boers.
Our men, on Thursday, patrolled in different directions--alert for a
second encounter, if the fates were propitious. But the foe declined to
oblige; he lay low all day, presumably imbibing coffee. In the
afternoon, heavy rains, which made piquet duty none too pleasant, came
down in torrents. Tents had just been pitched at our redoubts in the
nick of time. The three men killed on Tuesday were buried with military
honours. The funeral was large--the Colonel, his staff, and several
sections of the Town Guard marching in processional order.
Meanwhile a detachment of the Cape Police were endeavouring, with all
due prudence, to lure the Boers into battle. But they did not succeed.
It was advanced as an explanation of this singular inactivity that the
nerves of the enemy were shattered--since Tuesday. It was rumoured, too,
that a number of our "friends" had gone off on a recuperating pilgrimage
to Windsorton and Klipdam--two villages which had been taken without
the waste of a cartridge and placed under the _Verkleur_. Looting
operations, it was said, were being carried out on an extensive scale,
and property was being destroyed. Such was the local estimate of Boer
shortcomings--based on flimsy data, or no data at all. In Kimberley, we
only laughed at looting, and if the Boers effected an entrance we had no
objection to the exercise of their talent for vandalism. We _said_ so;
because we were profoundly confident of our collective capacity to keep
them _out_. Cynicism was the fashion. There was so much to say on the
great topic, and so little to read about it. The evenings seemed so
long; at half-past five, when the shops were closed, it appeared to be
much later. Nice people exchanged visits as usual, albeit they had to be
home at the disgustingly rural hour of nine o'clock, sharp. It was
amusing sometimes to watch the abnormal strides of fat men and women,
and to see them dodging the night patrol when they had to do a ten
minutes' walk in five. The patrol was not a policeman. Oh, dear, no; he
was far more stern, and had banished his politeness for three weeks. If
at nine-fifteen you wished to be directed to Jones Street, you would be
shown the way to the gaol instead. No explanations would be accepted, no
protests heeded, no excuses listened to; no consideration for persons,
no bank-balance however huge, would soften the inflexible patrol. "I did
not read the proclamation," would not do; you must have heard of it. You
might swear you had not, or _at_ the insulting sceptic, but he would
neither yield nor apologise. He was always armed with a rifle, and
accompanied by three or four men with ammunition. It was a common
experience with us to wake up during the night and list to the same old
hackneyed dialogue. "Halt!" in a voice of thunder, "who goes there?" "A
friend," would be the invariable response, the tone, pitch, and temper
of which would be regulated by the "pass" the friend had or had _not_ in
his pocket. "Advance, friend, and give the countersign," Excited
families would by this time have their heads thrust through the windows
to watch the _denouement_. Satisfactory explanations would generally
follow the final command; but occasionally a babel of recrimination
would ensue, and become gradually indistinct as the poor law-breaker was
hustled off to prison.
The people, for the most part, sat on their steps, discussing the events
of the day, the paucity of news, the doings of the army, the destruction
of the Republics and the probability of its easy accomplishment by
Christmas (1899). They would break off now and then with a reference to
the activity of the searchlight. The searchlight was of powerful calibre
and shed a brilliant radiance which, revolving, illuminated the
surrounding country. Needless to say, it shone all night; a surprise
visit from the Boers was out of the question. We felt light-hearted on
Saturday, and profoundly satisfied, that we were too intrepid for the
enemy. Our patrols kept vainly seeking to provoke a quarrel. At the
camps the "Death of Nelson," and "comic" melodies not less doleful, were
rendered with much feeling. At the hospital, the wounded were doing
well, and one man was quite himself again. They were extremely well
tended, and thanks to public solicitude, were the recipients of
countless delicacies, including _bottled_ cheer.
Thus two weeks were over--well over, it was affirmed. Alas! we had
another sixteen to put behind us; but no; nonsense! what am I saying?
Even the wags, and everyone was inclined to be waggish in the first
great fortnight of faith, never put the number higher than eight, lest
their jokes should lose point or their wit its subtlety.