DIAMONDS AND WHITE FEATHERS
THE CAMP, KIMBERLEY,
_September 28th, 1899_.
This usually dull and dirty mining station has now been occupied by a
small detachment of British troops. The force arrived here from the
camp at Orange River within the week, and include the 1st Loyal North
Lancashire, with its usual complement of machine guns, No. 1 Section
of the 7th Field Company of Royal Engineers, 23rd Company of Garrison
Artillery with 2.5 seven-pound muzzle-loaders on mountain carriages
(which are almost useless and certainly obsolete weapons), an
organised Army Medical Staff, and a transport most indifferently
equipped if it be intended for immediate and prolonged field service.
Yet it is claimed that nothing has been omitted which could make this
force an imposing factor in the chance of attack to which, from its
exposed situation, the hapless Kimberley is threatened. The Loyal
Lancashire Regiment is in full strength, but the battalions have been
divided between the positions here and the camp just south of the
Orange River. It is, of course, doubtful whether much be gained by
splitting up our forces along the border into small units, but at the
present juncture, when so few troops be in the colony, this policy is
receiving its own justification. We are all urgently hoping for the
arrival of troops, since if there were a general advance of the Dutch
troops, a contingency not by any means altogether remote, upon any one
of these well-defined but indifferently manned places, the task of
maintaining the advanced lines would be a severe strain upon the
efforts of the very limited number of men that are available at each
point. It is surely only within the limits of the British Empire that
a frontier line over 1,500 miles in extent would be kept absolutely
without any defensive measures; while it is Boer activity during the
past few weeks that has induced the Colonial authorities to adopt
their present precautions. Our troops are now more or less efficiently
prepared at certain points along this Western boundary, and, if no
order has yet come for their mobilisation, the steps necessary to
effect it have all been completed. At Kimberley, in the few days which
have elapsed, wonders in the preparation of the town's defences have
been worked, and the alarm which caused so much panic there before the
arrival of the soldiers has now, in part, subsided.
For many hours before the arrival of the troops at Kimberley crowds of
interested spectators besieged the railway station and thronged the
dusty thoroughfares of the town. The Imperial men detrained very
smartly to the sound of the bugle, off-loading the guns and ammunition
to the plaudits and delights of an admiring crowd. The actual
detraining took place at the Beaconsfield siding, two miles from
Kimberley, the men not making their camp in the town until the next
morning. For the time the transport was stored in the goods sheds,
and the troops arranged to bivouac beside the railway. The traffic
manager had prepared fires and boiling water before the men came, so
that soon after their arrival they were all served with dinner. The
detailing of guards, posting of sentries, and other evolutions
incidental to open camp, permitted Kimberley to indulge its taste for
military pomp and vanities. Imperial troops have not been here since
two squadrons of the 11th Hussars passed through from Mashonaland in
November, 1890, and the presence of the troops has inspired the
townfolk with a magnificent appreciation of the gallant men who have
come up for their protection. It is hoped that special means will be
taken to interest the troops in the few hours which they have free
from work. At present all attention is being devoted to the
construction of the defences of the town, to the formation of adequate
volunteer assistance, to the arrangement of a complete system of alarm
and rallying spots. Lieut.-Colonel Kekewich, in command of the
Imperial camp here, is anxious to assist the people in rifle practice
and field-firing; while the Diamond Fields Artillery and the De Beers
Artillery are to be called out for temporary service in conjunction
with the Imperial Artillery.
The rumour that a Boer force is within the vicinity of Kimberley has
done much to assist in the speedy formation of local forces, and now
that the train mules and private bullock teams have been requisitioned
for the Imperial service, there is much solemn speculation upon the
date of hostilities. The fact is that no one here can, with any
certainty, predict an hour. A shot anywhere will set the borderside
aflame. Moreover, the Boers are daily growing more impudent. At
Borderside, where the frontiers are barely eighty yards apart, a field
cornet and his men, who are patrolling their side of the line, greet
the pickets of the Cape Police who are stationed there with exulting
menaces and much display of rifles. But if the Dutch be thirsting in
this fashion for our blood, people at home can rest confident in the
fact that there will be no holding back upon the part of our men once
the fun begins. Seldom has such a determined and ferocious spirit
animated any British force as that one which is now stimulating the
troops in South Africa. Every man is sick of the Cabinet's delay, but
they find consolation in the fact that the slow movement of the
Ministerial machine is undertaken to avoid any precipitation of the
crisis before the forces to be engaged have arrived upon the scene.
Then it is every man's ambition to take his own share in "whopping"
Kruger.
I did not hurry to leave Kimberley; but the place where the diamonds
come from, the least admirable of any town on earth, is no longer
essential to my existence. It has neither charm nor elegance, and it
is sufficiently irregular in its construction to be the most barbarous
example of architecture in South Africa. It greets the traveller
enveloped in the haze of heat, and it bids him farewell through a
cloud of sand. But if one has once imagined what the appearance of the
mining town may be, let him give it a wide berth. It is a conglomerate
jumble of tin houses with dusty streets dedicated to modern industry,
and palpitating with the mere mechanical energy of native labour.
[Illustration: Major Lord Edward Cecil, C.S.O.]
Kimberley, however, was a convenient immediate base between Orange
River and Mafeking. Around these two places rumour was spreading a
well-woven net of probabilities, intimate yet inherently
impossible. War, bloody and fierce, was alternately looming large in
the horizon just above their situations, so for the moment I tarried,
watching the approach of impending battle from afar off. It was a fine
feeling, the constant thrill caused by the mere vividness of martial
rumours. They came from Buluwayo in the North, they came from Cape
Town in the South, they were brought daily from Bloemfontein; and if
they gave infinite zest to the passing hours, it was but the
happenings of the hour that they were doomed to be misbelieved. To
listen to the gossip and rumours of Headquarters at once became the
most serious interest which our life contained just now. Spies are
seen everywhere. Within the shade of every shadow there is said to
lurk a Boer secret service agent, and, as a consequence, the attitude
of the public is one in which each figuratively lays a grimy finger to
his nose and breathes blasphemies in whispers to his confiding friend.
The spy mania which swept through France but a few weeks ago has
appeared here, endowed with magnificent vitality. At Mafeking it has
dominated both the military and the public, and, as an illustration, I
append the official notice, on page 46, in which many of these gentry
are warned from the town by Lord Edward Cecil, Chief Staff Officer to
Colonel Baden-Powell.
NOTICE.
=SPIES=
There are in town to-day nine
known spies. They are hereby
warned to leave before 12 noon to-morrow
or they will be apprehended.
By order,
E. H. CECIL, Major,
C.S.O.
Mafeking,
7th Oct., 1899.
THE NOTICE TO SPIES ISSUED BY COL. BADEN-POWELL.
Kimberley has not yet gone so far as this notice, but a similar step
is in serious consideration, and the notice will soon be promulgated.
What with spies, war scares, reports of Boer invasion, and of active
hostilities having commenced, the Western border is living in a seethe
of excitement, and appreciating the crisis with but doubtful
enjoyment, and many signs of such indisputable terror. Kimberley has
called forth its volunteers, who in name are glorious, but in
utility uncertain. The Town Guard, after fortifying itself with much
Dutch courage, has taken unto itself a weapon of precision of which it
knows nothing. Infantry and musketry drill have not existed for the
town of diamonds; they are for the Cape Police, for the Mounted
Rifles, for Imperial troops; but for those who are regular in their
mining, but irregular in their drill, there is none of it. These
heroes shake with terror in private, but they gnash their teeth with
impotent valour in public; at heart they are rank cowards, for the
most part leaving to the few decently spirited the duties of volunteer
defence, and to the soldiery and constabulary the rigours of the
coming battle.
Nothing perhaps has been so discreditable as the hurried flight of men
from these towns which are within the area of possible hostilities. It
is perhaps different where they belong to the Transvaal, but one would
expect Englishmen, who have seen their womenfolk to places of
security, to proffer such service as could be turned to account in
these hours of emergency. It is an unpleasant fact to reflect upon
that the leaders of the general panic and consequent exodus from these
towns are mostly Britishers. From sheer force of numbers the
white-feathered brigade merits solicitous contempt.
Such is Kimberley in the passing hour, and as I waited there to see
whether the rumours would crystallise into actualities, the word was
passed round that three commandos of the Boers were concentrating upon
Mafeking. Heavens! how the specials skittled! By horse and on foot, by
cab and cart, they dashed to the station. Lord! and the train had gone
some hours! But, with the instinct of true war-dogs, they fled in
special expresses to the scene where attack was threatened. They might
have crawled from Kimberley to Mafeking on hands and knees, for Boers
may camp and Boers may trek, but war is still afar off. Had we not
travelled in such haste, the journey might have proved of interest,
but impatience made the time speed quickly, and the frontier posts
upon the road went by unnoticed. Just now these frontier stations are
of public interest. At Fourteen Streams, at Borderside, at Vryburg,
Boer commandos have laagered within a few yards of the frontier fence,
and since human nature is ever prone to politeness, it has become the
daily fashion for Boer and Britisher to swear at one another across
the intervening wires. John Bosman, a Borderside notoriety, implicated
in a late rising of the natives against Imperial authority, is in
command of one hundred and fifty "cherubs," as the Boer captain dubs
his gallant band. Matutinal and nocturnal greetings have enabled the
two forces to become acquainted with one another, and it is held to be
a sporting thing for men, from either force, to invade each other's
territory, inviting blasphemies and creating some excitement, since at
Borderside the friendly relations between the two countries be
altogether gainsaid.