BOMBAST AND BOMB-PROOFS
MAFEKING, _January 20th, 1900_.
Yesterday we completed the first hundred days of our siege, and when
we look back beyond the weeks of our investment into those earlier
days it is difficult to realise the trials and difficulties which we
have undergone, and to believe that the period which has elapsed has
witnessed the inauguration of a new era for South Africa. In those
early days when we first came here Mafeking was a flourishing
commercial centre, contented with its position, proud of its supremacy
over other towns, and now, perhaps, if outwardly it be much the same,
its future is impressed with only the faint echo of its former
greatness. The town itself has not suffered very much; here and there
its area has been more confined for purposes of defence, while the
streets and buildings bear witness to the effects of the bombardment.
Houses are shattered, gaping holes in the walls of buildings, furrows
in the roads, broken trees, wrecked telegraph poles, and that general
appearance of destruction which marks the path of a cyclone are the
outward and visible signs of the enemy's fire. We shall leave in
Mafeking a population somewhat subdued and harassed with anxiety for
their future, since the public and private losses will require the
work of many anxious years before any restoration of the fallen
fortunes can be effected. The pity of it is that all this distress
might have been so easily avoided, and would have been, had the
authorities in Cape Town and at home taken any heed of the very
pressing messages which were despatched daily to them; but it was
decreed that Mafeking should shift for itself for so long as it was
able, and then--surrender. This, however, did not meet with the
approval of Colonel Baden-Powell, with the result that we are still
fighting and still holding our own. We have even achieved some little
place in the sieges of the world, and our present record has already
surpassed many of the more prominent sieges. But there is not much
consolation to be gained from contemplating the position which we may
eventually take up in the records of famous sieges, and, truth to
tell, there is such glorious uncertainty about the date of our relief
that it is perhaps possible that we may surpass the longest of
historic sieges. At one time we confidently anticipated that the siege
would be over in ten days. This, however, was in the days of our
youth; since then we have learned wisdom, and eagerly seize
opportunities of snapping up any unconsidered trifles in the way of
bets which lay odds upon our being "out of the wood" in another month.
Events are moving so slowly below that it does not seem as though we
shall be relieved by the end of February. The relief column, which a
month ago appeared almost daily in "Orders," is now no longer
mentioned in polite society, although there be little reason to doubt
that, at some very remote date, the troops may make their appearance
here.
The early part of November witnessed the first attempt of the
Commissariat to control the stocks of provisions in the town. All
persons holding stocks of Kaffir corn, meal, crushed meal, yellow
mealies, and flour, were ordered to declare the quantities and price
at which they would be willing to dispose of them to the authorities.
Captain Ryan, the Commissariat officer, was an energetic and
painstaking individual, whose aim was to prove his department a
financial success, and so rigidly did he adhere to this resolve that
the questions involved by the Commissariat became amongst the most
important of the siege. Traders claimed that the economy of the
situation gave them a siege profit, since, as the Government had not
been shrewd enough to lay down stores, those who had done this at
their own risk, and upon their own initiative, should be permitted, at
least, to make a margin of profit in proportion to the prices which
they could obtain for their goods. This contention, however, was not
upheld by the Commissariat officer, who at once became the best hated
man in Mafeking. Oddly enough, although the Government would not allow
the merchants to reap the profit, they themselves, in virtue of the
expense in connection with the issue of rations, were not above
charging these expenses to prime cost, and so exorbitantly increasing
themselves the retail price of the articles which they had taken over.
What was perhaps the most objectionable feature in the findings of the
Commissariat Department was that the merchant himself who disposed of
his goods to the Government at a ruling which allowed but the profit
incidental to the transaction of business in times of peace, was
compelled to buy back, when he required goods of that particular
variety, at the price which the Government had placed upon them.
This, of course, seemed to the people unfair, and they were quite
unable to obtain any satisfactory explanation of such procedure;
satisfactory because the reasons vouchsafed assumed the right of the
Government to a certain profit, denying, however, that rate in the
same ratio of proportion to the individual. Among the chief obstacles
against which Captain Ryan had to contend was the maintenance of the
daily bread ration, since the supply of flour, of mealie meal, of
oats, was not particularly great. There were many experiments made
with the bread, but those which were most unsatisfactory failed
because it had been found difficult to sift the husks from the oats
once the oats had been crushed. While the issue of this particular
bread lasted symptoms of acute dysentery prevailed, and in order to
prevent an epidemic of dysentery from breaking out the Commissariat
were compelled to adopt other methods of treatment. The bread
eventually developed into a weighty circular brown biscuit, weighing
anything under six ounces, about nine inches in circumference. These
particular biscuits were less spiky, and less liable to create acute
inflammation. They were issued to the entire garrison, excepting those
who had been permitted to draw an invalid ration of white bread, and
were preserved in many cases as mementoes of the siege. Although we
have food enough to last several months this precaution is necessary,
as when the siege is raised many weeks must elapse before supplies can
come in. The garrison has been put upon a scale of reduced
rations--1/2 lb. of bread, 1/2 lb. of meat per day. The reductions in
bread took place in the early part of the year, while the orders in
relation to the meat supply were issued during this week. Matches and
milk are prohibited from public sale, and the latest order prevents
the shops from opening. All supplies of biscuits, tea, and
sugar--preserves also--have been commandeered. The shop-keepers and
the hotel proprietors, and indeed anybody who can find any possible
excuse for doing so, have trebled the price of their goods, pleading
that the inflation is due to the siege. Accordingly, meal and flour
have jumped from 27s. per bag to 50s.; potatoes, where they exist at
all, are L2 per cwt.; fowls are 7s. 6d. each; and eggs 12s. per dozen.
Milk and vegetables can no longer be obtained, and rice has taken the
place of the latter among the menus. These figures mark the rise in
the more important foodstuffs as sold across the counter, but the
hotels have, in sympathy, followed the example, they, upon their part,
attributing it to the increase which the wholesale merchants have
decreed. A peg of whisky is 1s. 6d., dop brandy 1s., gin 1s., large
stout is 4s., small beer 2s. In ordinary times whisky retails at 5s.
per bottle. This rate has now advanced to 18s. per bottle and 80s. per
case. Dop, which is usually 1s. 4d., is now 12s. per bottle; the
difference upon beer is almost 200 per cent., and inferior cigarettes
are now 18s. per hundred. Upon an inquiry among the publicans here, I
was informed that the chief reason for the increase in their prices
was to hinder the local soldiery from becoming intoxicated; this
sudden regard for the moral welfare of the garrison on the part of the
saloon keepers is however, oddly at variance with their earlier
practices, and is in reality the flimsy pretext by which they seek to
condone an almost unwarrantable act. Hitherto the constantly recurring
evils arising from the sale of drink to soldiers and others performing
military duties, have been openly encouraged by the hotel
proprietors, who, although they now profess a fine appreciation for
the moral obligations attached to their trade when prices are high and
profits great, took no very serious steps at the outset to allay what
was becoming a very serious menace to the community. Moreover, the
hotels have demanded from such people as war correspondents and others
brought here through business connected with the siege, rates which
are far in advance of the ordinary tariffs, with equally preposterous
demands for native servants and horse-feed. Indeed, whatever Mafeking
may lose through the absence of business with the Transvaal, many will
receive ample compensation from the high prices by which those who are
able, are endeavouring to recoup themselves, and in a way which it is
not possible to consider other than extortionate. Stores of all kinds
are, however, rapidly giving out, and it would not have been possible
for Mafeking to have sustained the siege so long had not the
Government contractor, upon his own initiative, laid in far greater
stocks of provisions than were provided for by his contract, and in
this respect every credit should be given to the commercial foresight
and sagacity by which these arrangements were inspired. For everything
which is in daily want, in fact for the bare necessities of life upon
the existing scale of reduced rations, Mafeking now depends upon the
stores and bonded warehouse which represent the local branch of the
contracting firm, Messrs. Julius Weil & Co. In their hands lies the
issuing of the daily allowances of bread and meat to the garrison, of
the forage for the horses, of the feeding of the natives. Indeed,
there seemed no end to the resources of this house. When the siege
began, had there been no Weil, the Government stocks would not have
lasted two months, and, moreover, they did not know that the Weils had
laid in these stores--a fact which again establishes how very meagre
were the preparations made for the siege. Therefore, when the time
comes to give honour to whom honour is due, notice should be taken of
the important _role_ which this firm has fulfilled during the siege of
Mafeking.
The siege drags on, however, the days seeming to be an endless
monotony in which there is absolutely nothing to sustain one's
interest. Week by week we make a united and laborious attempt to whip
our flagging energies into some activity. It is a hideous spectacle,
but this Sunday celebration reveals how very trying has become the
situation. The military authorities have been at their wits' end to
find amusement for the garrison, and this effort has developed into a
Sabbatarian charade in which we all assume an active co-operation, and
try to think that we are having a very giddy and even gushing time.
Colonel Baden-Powell, in this respect, makes an admirable
stage-manager. Authors, scenic artists, stage hands, scene shifters,
there are, of course, none; but in the middle of the week the Chief
Staff Officer becomes the town crier, crying lustily, by means of
proclamation, that, by the grace of God, upon the coming Sunday there
will be a golf match or baby show, a concert or polo match, even some
attempt at amateur theatricals. The Sunday respite is, however,
immensely appreciated, and, indeed, it is a very welcome panacea to
our siege-strung nerves. Where in England you people are saying, "Oh,
bother Sunday," "How like a Sunday," we say, "Thank God it is Sunday,"
implying, for that day in seven, a period of absolute rest and no
little contentment. We are warriors on Sunday: bold, bad, and brave.
We have our horses out on Sunday and take a toss as elegantly as we
take our neighbour's money at cards in the evening, when fortune
favours. We drink, we accept one another's invitations to meals of
unsurpassing heaviness; we even invite ourselves to one another's
houses. We drink, we eat, we flirt, we live in every second of the
hours which constitute the Sunday, and upon the passing of the day it
is as though we had entered into another world. As midnight arrives,
we hasten back to our trenches filled with the good things of the day,
even with the zest to penetrate the mysteries of another week of
siege. In the morning we stand-to-arms at four o'clock, not because
there is any special purpose for doing so, but rather that we may
satisfy ourselves that we are soldiers; and then the labour of the day
begins, and for six more days we stand-to-arms and wonder when the
devil the enemy are coming on. We are very brave then, and at times we
take ourselves so seriously that into each breast there comes the
spirit of the Commander-in-Chief. Then we criticise the war, talk
fatuously of what we would do, struggle somewhat ingloriously with the
archaic jargon of the army, until, if our speech betrays our
ignorance, we, nevertheless, make a mighty lot of noise. Then we are
satisfied, though doubtless each thinks the other somewhat of a fool.
To the man who looks on at all this, the gradual change which has come
over the garrison is plainly discernible. In the beginning, when the
Boers made war upon us, there was a contempt for bomb-proofs; there
was a contempt for many other things besides, since each individual
knew better than his Post Commander, and did not hesitate to tell him
so, or rather to imply that he had told him so; but the scorn of
bomb-proofs was mightier than the sword. In those days we feared
nothing beyond mosquitoes and the creeping things of earth, but the
change came silently, and although few people commented upon it, the
transformation was completed within the first month of the siege. It
grew, as it were, in a single night, from a village of mud-walled
houses into one in which every other man owned something of a dug-out.
For the first few days, while scorn of dug-outs was rife, he who built
himself a haven kept it to his inner conscience, recalling it, when
its existence was forced upon him, with something of an apologetic
air. Thus we existed; then the staff built an underground room, and
upon the Sunday that followed this momentous event many there were who
visited it, and who, gathering wrinkles, went quietly to their gardens
and did likewise. Thus insidiously came the transformation, and
although there are still a few who talk disparagingly of these
bomb-proof shelters, their faces wear an anxious look when the enemy
are shelling, and strangely enough, as the fire waxes hotter, they
easily find excuses to visit friends, lingering, the while, in the
congenial gloom of their host's dug-out.
So greatly have ideas expanded upon this subject that at one of the
hotels an underground dining-room is in course of construction. This
is at Riesle's, whose proprietor, at last, has been induced to build
his boarders--mostly war correspondents--a dug-out, since he had given
places of shelter to the servants, to his native boys, and to his
family, seemingly thinking that since the boarders kept the hotel
going they could very easily shift for themselves. But then that is
always the creed of the publican. These dug-outs are large
excavations some ten by fourteen feet and seven feet deep, upon which
there is placed a layer of iron rails which are procured from the
railway yard; over these there is usually a layer of thick wooden
sleepers, which again are covered over with sheets of corrugated iron.
The earth from the hole is then piled up on this, and, after the
dug-out has been inspected by the Town Commandant it is considered
safe for habitation; a few cases and chairs equip it with certain
accommodation, although there are a few into which trestle beds have
been placed. It is not very healthy passing days and nights in these
inverted earthworks, but it is eminently safe, and has been the sole
means afforded us for escaping the enemy's fire. Fortunately the Boers
have made no attempt to advance upon the town under cover of their
guns, for if they did so we should have to stand-to-arms and face the
music of the flying splinters. Every post has been supplied with one
of these underground retreats, and quite the larger proportion of the
townspeople have constructed private shelters for themselves.