_Week ending 3rd February, 1900_
The fierceness of the assault to which we had been exposed was the great
subject of discussion, but it was not until the sluggish pendulum of
Siege time had again swung round to the Sabbath that we freely and
without dread of interruption gave full expression to our feelings
towards the foe. The inconsistency of a nation so profuse in Christian
professions was much discussed, and ignoring our own shortcomings in the
same respect, to say nothing of the essential cruelty of all wars, we
readily requisitioned our best resources of invective--to show what
charity really was. We had been living in stormy tea-cups for a long
while; our fury was usually more ungovernable than this or that
grievance warranted; but we had never before given way to such
rhetorical excesses, against not only the Boers, but the Military, as
well--Lord Methuen, the Mayor, the Colonel and his Staff. Even Lord
Roberts was snapped at. They were all in turn metaphorically tarred and
feathered.
But these, after all, were old offenders; their faults and
idiosyncrasies had been reviewed often. The occasion demanded a new
scapegoat; and we determined to find him. We looked across the broad
expanse of veld and bitterly reflected on a destiny that circumscribed
our freedom within the barriers of a town; that denied us even the wild
freshness of morning uncontaminated by the _miasma_ of city streets. In
this frame of mind we easily drifted into speculation on first causes.
We began to ask ourselves upon whose shoulders the blame primarily
rested for conditions which made such slavery possible; how it came to
pass that a few toy-guns and a handful of soldiers had been deemed
sufficient to protect Kimberley; and finally to vote the error of
judgment incompatible with good administration. And then we remembered
that the Bond was a powerful organisation, that a Bond Ministry was in
Office. The needed scapegoat, in the person of the Prime Minister, was
thus easily discovered. He it was who pooh-poohed the necessity of
_arming_ Kimberley, and we accordingly lost no time in setting him up in
the game of Siege Aunt Sally as a popular target for our rancour. And
pelted he was with right good will. The genial Mr. Quilp, when he found
himself deserted by his obsequious flatterer, Sampson Brass, cried out
in the seclusion of his apartment at the wharf: "Oh, Sampson, Sampson,
if I only had you here!" and he was considerably consoled by his
operations with a hammer on the desk in front of him. The feelings of
Mr. Quilp were understood, if not respected in Kimberley.
The name of the Prime Minister had not been long added to our "little
list" when a local liar led off mildly with intelligence of the
Premier's resignation. We improved on this by assuming that his
resignation was obligatory--that he had been "dismissed." That he had
been arrested was the fiction next resorted to; and finally it was
blazoned forth that he had been dismissed from the world altogether.
After that he was let rest, and we returned to the misdemeanours of
men, in and out of khaki, whose turns had not yet come. Let me observe
in passing that the Prime Minister was--as we learned subsequently--more
sinned against than sinning. His _apologia_, and the extent to which he
had been wronged and misrepresented are matters outside the scope of
these memoirs. But they shed a lurid light on the picturesque _canards_
we swallowed--and digested with an ease that any ostrich would envy.
While engrossed in these denunciations of everything and everybody,
Sunday glided by--glided, for the pendulum was not so slow on Sundays.
We prepared for the worst the Boers could do on the morrow--rumour said
it was to be very bad--and were in no way disposed to be comforted by
the message, on the seriousness of our position, which the Colonel was
credited with having despatched to Lord Roberts. We were unenlivened by
the talk we heard on all sides as to the probable effect of the Foreign
Consuls' protests; in optimistic quarters it was felt that the protests
would lead to "intervention" of a kind rather different from that
bargained for by brother Boer. The war, it was asserted, might stop
"very suddenly." Well, of course, it might stop in certain
eventualities, or it might not; the sky might fall, but we might easily
die (on the diet) _before_ it came down. The Boers toiling at their
trenches outside cherished no illusions on these points. Their magazines
had been blown up, but, the road to Bloemfontein being clear, they could
replenish them. Plumer's proximity to Mafeking (notified in the
afternoon) would have been of more significance in our eyes had not
experience prejudiced us against faith in proximity value, Methuen's
proximity to Kimberley, for example, aggravated our sorrows in a very
special way.
On Monday Lord Methuen kept telling us from the wilderness that he was
there and still alive. The vitality of the enemy, however, concerned us
more. Operations were started early; three shells presumably intended
for the _Sanatorium_ landed in Beaconsfield. The first two fell
harmlessly, and the charm associated with the third was no less
disappointing--to an outsider. The charm surrounding the life of Mr.
Rhodes was more tangible; it appeared to extend to the roof that covered
him. The greater part of the day was peaceful; but the Military were the
Military, war was their profession; and a fight with the foe being for
the moment impracticable, they ingeniously set about renewing the strife
with their erstwhile friends--who, like _Sancho Panza_, clamoured merely
for something to eat. Our recent experiences had tended to moderate our
claims in this regard; we had become inured to bad living; our
constitutions had had time to wax weak; our appetites were less hearty.
Matters appertaining to the stomach had reached a sad pass. Mealie meal,
_ad lib._, was no longer possible, and porridge--well, the good that it
had done lived after it, though we had never acknowledged the actual
_doing_ of it. Rice was issued to Indians exclusively, and, albeit they
got nothing else, they had on the whole rather the better of Europeans.
The exhaustion of our golden syrup made the children--young and
"over-grown"--weep. We had been reduced to the ignominy of cultivating a
toleration of what was called treacle, and even that nauseous compound
was drifting towards extinction. They were hard times for all who could
eat their soup; they were harder still for those whom the look of it
satisfied. To these latter a tribute of praise for consistency is due,
whatever may be said of their sense. The pathos of it all was that we
got plenty of tea. We had no milk, and because we needed in consequence
all the more sugar we were given less; and as "mealie-pap" had pride of
place on the _menu_ the day's allowance of sugar was only too apt to be
recklessly monopolised in giving _that_ a taste. We were observing a
protracted lenten season, a more rigorous fast than any Church
prescribes. The local Catholic Bishop appreciated the gravity of the
situation when he suspended the Church's law against the use of meat on
Fridays. Eat it when you can (which might be only one day in the week,
Friday as likely as any other), this edict amounted to in effect.
But we had yet fourteen ounces of bread to preserve us, the whole of
which ration was sometimes polished off by mid-day meal time. There
could be no modification in that direction. Fourteen ounces of bread was
needed to sustain life. But the Military apparently thought otherwise;
they suddenly intimated that we must endeavour to keep its lamp aflame
on "ten!" The _Commissariat_ reckoned it possible; so the new "Law" was
set in motion without compunction. A number of Fingoes preferred to die
at home for choice, and with leave of the Colonel made an effort to get
there. Unhappily, they were not allowed a choice; the Boers drove them
back "to die with the English." Unlike the Basutos, the Fingo tribe was
not physically or geographically in a position to make reprisals for
such indignities. Besides, the English, the Boers knew, would be bound
to share their last crust with their black brethren, and they wanted us
to get to the last crust stage at our earliest convenience.
Contrary to expectation, nothing exciting occurred on Tuesday. The enemy
again concentrated their fire on the _Sanatorium_; they evidently
esteemed starvation, however expedient as a means for shuffling off the
common herd, a little too good for a thinker in Continents. According to
documents which had been found in the pocket of a Boer prisoner, Mr.
Rhodes was awaiting a favourable opportunity to escape in "a big
balloon!" This strange idea may have been responsible for the efforts
made to lay the great balloonist.
A cricket match was played in the afternoon by twenty-two disciples of
Tapley; and sundry flashes of congratulation--adulatory of our gallant
stand--were exchanged between our Mayor and Port Elizabeth's. These
messages were soothing, but none of us acknowledged it. Soft words,
alas! only reminded us of parsnips. And soon we should be without bread.
The bread question was the topic of the hour, and gave rise to more
acrimony than had any antecedent injustice. Such unwonted severity in
the administration of Civil affairs was a strain on the loyalty of a
people self-governed since they were born. The view was stoutly
maintained that the situation was not so bad as to warrant the adoption
of such drastic measures. They were straining the limits of human
endurance too callously. Nothing could alter our resolve to dispute with
the Boer every inch of the ground we defended. So much was agreed. But
the tendency to famish us displayed by our Rulers was not calculated to
improve the _morale_ of a civilian, or any, army. It did not bespeak the
early relief of Kimberley. Actions like Kekewich's and Gorle's in the
matter of bread fostered feelings of indifference. They would not
stimulate the town's defenders to shoot better or to fight the more
tenaciously in a crisis. With troops pouring into the country, wherefore
the need of so much supererogation? A hungry man capable of demolishing
a ten ounce loaf--a siege product--in ten bites might well echo
wherefore indeed!
On Wednesday Lord Methuen could be heard banging as usual. In the early
days, the halcyon days of optimism, the banging would have been
exhilarating to a degree; but the march of events had compelled us to
reason better. The day was uncommonly quiet; even the diurnal fling at
Mr. Rhodes was omitted. Lies, rumours, sensations, fabrications were
still rampant. A poster in all the paraphernalia of Official authority,
proclaiming the relief of Mafeking--four months too soon!--adorned the
walls of the Town House. General Buller, we were informed, was about to
unlock the door of Ladysmith--"the key had been found." But evidently
the _lock_ had not, as was proven by the subsequent disastrous retreat
across the Tugela.
Business was at this period conducted in more orderly fashion at the
Washington Market, partly due, no doubt, to the unmixed "meat" put up
for sale. Everything was simplified; the Authorities had developed into
wholehoggers in horseflesh. A placard bearing the grim inscription,
"horse _only_" was flaunted in the market place. The arrangement saved
the butcher much troublesome computation--untrammelled as he was by
bovine fractions--and injured trade agreeably. It kept off the folk who
had no dogs, and others who preferred to take the State Soup, with their
eyes shut. All the cattle slaughtered were exclusively for the Kitchen.
The "Law" decreed it; it was in the "Gazette," and was nothing if not in
equity. The quality of the soup was poorer than ever; the quantity
offered for sale was suspiciously large, and, oh! so inferior to the
article served out with a flourish of ladles a week before. Many took
the pledge against it (some of them broke it), but there were plenty
less aesthetically constituted who could dissipate on _two_ pints! We
could yet buy carrots, dry, tough little things; but they were
vegetables beyond question, and there is much in a _name_ where horses
are _cooked_. They (the carrots) were sold by the State at threepence a
bunch, and the people still made wild rushes to purchase them. A force
of police was always on duty at the vegetable, the carrot wing of the
market, and it was interesting to watch the human nature in everybody,
including strong men not ordinarily credited with much of it.
Thursday was uneventful. The _quasi_-official statement relative to the
relief of Mafeking was contradicted. The peculiarity of the
proceeding--of contradicting an _agreeable_ canard--not the
contradiction itself--occasioned surprise; it was so unusual. Some
people attributed it to a desire on the Colonel's part cheaply to
vindicate Official veracity in all things--not injurious to the
"Military Situation!" All our little troubles and kicks against the
pricks had to be subordinated to the "Military Situation." The quality
of the very horse we ate was due to the "Military Situation." The local
situation, with its alarming death roll, was a trifle light as air
beside the other. Had the Colonel in his wisdom seen anything in its
suppression advantageous to the "Military Situation," the truth anent
Mafeking would hardly have seen the light. The "Military Situation" was
sacrosanct, supreme, inviolable! It was a fetish, a sort of idol that
the "Law" commanded all creeds and classes to worship.
In the afternoon an occasional shell was jerked into the town.
Kenilworth was loudly barked at for an hour; and the correspondent of
the _London Times_, while driving in the suburb, narrowly escaped being
bitten. But no cattle were hit; that was the pity of it. We could have
forgiven the Boers much had they only killed the oxen, and provided us
with something rational to eat, in spite of the Colonel and his horses.
Friday was all excitement; we had a glimpse of the balloon again,
waltzing at a high altitude in the heavens, the Column's artillery the
while maintaining a continuous uproar. Soon a terrific report was heard,
which was presumed to have been caused by the explosion of a Boer
magazine. A lyddite missile had done the deed; no "common" shell, we
argued, could have created such a noise. After an hour the balloon
disappeared, and we were of the earth earthly once more. Late in the
evening some harmless shells dropped into the streets, and a second
catastrophe befel a Boer magazine.
Saturday again. Lord Methuen proclaimed it through the throat of his
cannon. Long Cecil--pretending to deduce from their silence that the
Boers imagined it to be Sunday--was most profuse in the distribution of
"compliments." But no acknowledgment came back, no error was admitted,
and the day dragged itself to an end, leaving little in its train to
turn one's thoughts from gloomy retrospection.
It was at this time that practical people began to express amazement at
the conduct of their less practical neighbours. A new epidemic had
broken out. The doctrine of self-help was being practised with a
vengeance. The pleasure of gardening was the newest discovery. In short,
the notion of growing vegetables on our own, so to speak, since we could
not buy them readymade, had come to be acclaimed as the higher sagacity.
The curious feature of this departure was that it should grow in
popularity as the Siege approached its appointed end. Relief or no
relief, the vegetables would not be wasted. But the practical people
only laughed at economic platitudes. Vegetable seeds were in great
demand, and families were everywhere to be seen reclaiming their ten by
ten feet patches of common-age--where _half_ a blade of grass had never
grown before! Some enthusiasts, to enlarge their holdings, went even so
far as to pull down their untenanted fowl-houses. The soil was not so
favourable to horticulture as it might have been, but the best was made
of it. Inspired by a determination to live as long as possible we
ruthlessly uprooted our flowers, and conjured up visions of unborn
potatoes and cabbage. If the Military kept whittling down our rations,
if we were to be permitted only to nibble like so many birds, the
vegetables might one day serve as a _dernier ressort_. Who could tell?
The enterprise displayed was admirable; but--had we to wait till the
vegetables grew? Were they to grow while we waited? This sudden zeal for
the development of the land recalled the song of the condemned Irishman
who took advantage of his judge's clemency, and with characteristic
humour selected a gooseberry bush from which to be hanged. When the
objection was raised that "it would not be high enough," he expressed
his willingness to wait till it grew!
This policy of despair irritated the landless classes, and some of them
were mean enough to remind us that Martial Law forbade the use of water
for gardening purposes. But the reminder only furnished the workers with
a fresh incentive; it made their work a real as well as an ideal
pleasure. The possibility of breaking the "Law" (with impunity) was
worth a deal of productive, or unproductive, labour. The bread ordinance
had not increased our respect for "benevolent" despotism. Any chance of
setting at naught the _absolute_ prepensities of our legislators (with a
watering-can or by judicious keyhole stuffing, to hide the light) was
duly availed of.
No amount of the portentous signalling that went on night after night
could resuscitate our faith in the Military. An age ago the
Magersfontein misfortune had put off indefinitely the long-expected
succour. We had been made to feel our insignificance beside the
"Military Situation." Our population after all was mainly black, but
black or white, we were nothing to the "Military Situation." Sickness
might increase, and troubles multiply; Kafirs and children might perish
in batches; meanwhile the "Military Situation" decried even a tear.