THE LAST FIGHT
MAFEKING, _May 13th, 1900_.
From time to time intelligence has reached us from native sources that
the Boers were still anxious to make a final attempt to capture the
town. We have had this story repeated to us so frequently that there
were many in our midst who had altogether ceased to pay any attention
to it; but that there was some sincerity in the desire to attack us
has now been proved to be true, and it would seem that the obstacle
which existed, and which prevented an earlier realisation of the
enemy's plans, was the absence of any leader sufficiently capable and
enterprising to attempt the execution of so hazardous a venture.
However, when General Cronje delegated full command to General Snyman,
President Kruger sent from Pretoria his youthful but gallant nephew,
Commandant Eloff, who had not only frequently expressed his desire to
capture the town, but brought with him from Pretoria men whose special
knowledge of our fortifications had been gained when serving as
troopers in the Protectorate Regiment. It was these men who were
destined to conceive and carry to a successful conclusion the work of
projecting a body of the Boers within our interior lines. Weeks have
elapsed since Commandant Eloff arrived from Pretoria, but he has bided
his time, studying carefully our system of defence, our outlying
earthworks, and collecting all scraps of information which would
convey to him a more intimate knowledge of our position. For a time
his plans matured, but, as he conned them well over, he began to make
his preparations, recognising that, if he allowed many more days to
pass, the relief column from the south would be an additional and
important factor in his scheme of operations. Upon May 10th the relief
column had reached Vryburg, and Vryburg is only ninety-six miles from
Mafeking. Upon May 12th this southern column had advanced to
Setlagoli, a point only forty-five miles distant from the town, and
the receipt of this intelligence, which was brought to Commandant
Eloff by his scouts, revealed to him the urgency and absolute
necessity of carrying out his attack upon the town. It was a
well-considered scheme, whose eventual success was only nullified by
the lack of cohesion and estranged relations which existed between
General Snyman and Commandant Eloff. It was a glorious day for
Mafeking; it was a day of honourable misfortune for the Boers.
Mafeking fell heavily upon Eloff, recapturing the fort which the Boers
had surprised and taken in the early morning, and thereby effecting
the release of the thirty-two prisoners whom the Boers had caught, and
causing known casualties among the Boers of killed, wounded, and taken
prisoners, 139.
[Illustration: Killing Horses for the Natives and Entire Garrison.]
Commandant Eloff had designed to pierce our western lines under cover
of a well-organised feint upon the eastern front of the town. Upon the
morning of May 12th and a little before 4 a.m., the bells sounded a
general alarm and the bugles summoned a general assembly of available
arms to all posts. As in the early days of the siege, I ran from my
hotel to Musson's Fort, where, upon similar occasions, I have served
as a volunteer. There was no sign of disturbance in the west, but very
heavy firing was breaking over the town from the main position of the
enemy in the east. Gradually this fire was extended until the flanking
positions of the Boers north-east and south-east were also engaged. As
we stood to our arms in the fort, it seemed that they were directing
an attack upon the brickfields, when, just as it appeared to be the
usual innocuous fusilade, streaks of fire were seen leaping to the sky
towards the west; there was a lurid glow across the native stadt and
dense clouds of smoke were drifting and piling heavily towards the
north. There was instant commotion in the fort, everybody exclaiming
at once that the stadt was ablaze. At that moment we did not realise
that the conflagration which we saw was the deliberate work of the
enemy, although there were many who, catching sight of the blaze,
concluded that the attack upon our eastern front was the blind to a
movement of much greater importance upon the west. Thoroughly aroused
and anxious to learn the reasons of the fire, I returned to the hotel.
By this time rifle fire had slackened upon the east of the town, but
bullets were coming over from the west, the town being under this
cross-fire. There were few people about the town, and, save for an
occasional group of frightened women, one saw no one. My horse was
already saddled, and, riding to the front of the town, I at once
recognised that the Boers were in the stadt. Huts were burning in all
directions, the separate fires blending into a sheet of flame; dense
smoke overhung everything. There was the crackle of the burning
huts, and showers of golden sparks tossed themselves into the air. It
was still dark and the hour was about five; a lemon-coloured dawn,
sheathed in the golden glory of the fire and obscured by the
grey-black waves of smoke, was slowly breaking, following closely upon
the heels of a flame-coloured night. It was the hour when confusion
reigns supreme, when it is impossible to tell tree from man, an
outcrop of stone from a recumbent beast. It was the very hour in which
to attack, but the Boers secured an additional advantage from the
dense and heavy smoke which filled the atmosphere, making the gloom
more impenetrable than ever and screening effectually the rapidity of
their progress. Heavy firing was proceeding from the direction of the
stadt, and there was a confused babel of voices. Natives were running
in all directions, and against the flames groups of figures were
noticeable in silhouette.
There seemed little doubt that the situation at this moment was grave
in the extreme. The Boers in the stadt, dividing rapidly, had advanced
upon the British South Africa Police Fort, in which from the beginning
of the siege the regimental headquarters of the Protectorate Regiment
have been installed. At this moment Colonel Hore and the officers and
men attached to the regimental headquarters staff, including four
belonging to the British South Africa Police, numbered some
twenty-three. Preparing to resist the invasion, Colonel Hore had
already manned the earthwork, which from the days of the Warren
expedition has been designated as a fort. The distance between the
stadt and the fort is about four hundred yards, and around the
regimental headquarters lie scattered numerous outbuildings. It is an
impossible place to hold with a small number of men, while the
outbuildings are so situated as to afford very excellent cover to any
troops which may be advancing with the intention of surrounding the
main buildings; and it was this manoeuvre which Commandant Eloff was
endeavouring to carry to a successful issue. Scattering quickly, and
under the cover of the different houses, he advanced within a very
short distance of the fort. In the dim light, obscured by smoke, and
in part concealed by the native refugees, it was impossible to tell
whether these men were the van of a Boer force or our own outposts in
process of retirement upon Colonel Hore. Under the guidance of Trooper
Hayes, a deserter from the Protectorate Regiment, seven hundred Boers
had rushed the interior lines of the outposts, making their way along
the bed of the Molopo and through Hidden Hollow into the stadt. The
movement had been noticed by the outposts, who, unable to do anything
against such overwhelming odds, had given the alarm and fallen back
upon either flank, delivering a flanking fire when the Boers were
discovered. Arriving in the stadt, Commandant Eloff had ignited the
huts in various directions, in this manner giving to the main body of
the Boers their signal to advance. Before the rush of Commandant
Eloff's men the Baralongs separated, reforming behind the enemy, in
order to co-operate with our advanced outposts in repelling the
progress of the main body. From the moment that this was accomplished
the Boers outside our lines and those who were within the stadt were
cut off from one another; but, leaving half his force in the stadt,
Commandant Eloff, with whom were Captain Von Weiss and Captain de
Fremont, prepared to assault the fort, and, advancing rapidly upon it,
had surrounded it with but little difficulty. When the little band of
men saw the Boers emerging from stadt, fire was at once opened upon
them, but, as they claimed to be friends, and as it was understood
that they were our own outposts, the fire from the fort ceased until
the enemy were within sixty yards of its front face, being at the same
time, unknown to the inmates of the fort, in occupation of the
buildings upon either flank and in the rear.
This, then, was the situation which had come to pass within three
hundred yards of the railway and about seven hundred yards from the
town. In the town itself the Town Guard, the Bechuanaland Rifles, and
the entire strength of the Railway Division had been ordered at once
to man the railway line. The men from the Hospital Redan and the
establishment from Early's Corner Fort were detailed to the line in
addition to the Bechuanaland Volunteers, while the Railway Division,
screening their movements behind the corrugated iron fencing which
encloses the railway yards, and perforating rifle holes in the
sheeting of the fence, were given charge of the railway yards.
Lieutenant Feltham and his troop of C Squadron supported Major Panzera
and the artillery at the railway bridge, while, under orders from
Colonel Baden-Powell, Lieutenant Montcrieff advanced a section of the
Town Guard to occupy a house a little removed from the new line of
defences which had been already taken up. The town itself, agog with
excitement, had been reinforced by the Cape Police from the
brickfields and the British South Africa Police from the kopje, and
with these forces opposing them, the Boers at the fort found their
further advance cut off, while, unless General Snyman forced the
passage of the outposts and brought up his artillery, the entire body
would be hemmed in.
In the meantime Commandant Eloff demanded the unconditional surrender
of the twenty-three men who were established at the fort, an order
which, had Colonel Hore refused, implied that every man with him would
be shot. Then, in that moment, it was known that the cheering which
had been heard in Hidden Hollow a few moments before was the
triumphant chortle of the Boers as they stepped within the inmost
lines of our defences. Around the fort there was silence--there was a
terrible silence; there was a man who was weighing in his hand and in
his heart the lives of twenty-two others, who was considering in a
fleeting moment of time the flight of an honourable career which had
brought to him a string of six medals, and who saw in one of two steps
instant death for his little band and irrevocable and almost
irretrievable ruin in the other. The pause was indeed death-like;
there was the hallowed uncertainty of a future existence, but there
was the moral certainty that no living future would fall to the lot of
any of the twenty-three men upon whose ears the cry had fallen of
surrender. The position was hopeless. With the Boers behind them, with
the Boers flanking them, with the Boers in front of them, with three
hundred of the enemy within a circumference of seventy yards, what
more could an honourable man and a gallant officer do than accept the
responsibility of his situation and save the lives of his men by
complying unconditionally with the demand of the enemy? Thus did
Colonel Hore surrender. It was impossible to withdraw to the town.
Such a movement would have meant retirement over seven hundred yards
of open, level ground without a particle of cover and with a force of
three hundred of the enemy immediately in the rear; moreover the
situation imperatively demanded this action in consequence of events
over which he had no control. It was, perhaps, a moment as pathetic
and great as any in his career. The surrender was effected at 5.25
a.m., and was not without incident, for with the garrison holding up
their hands, their arms laid down, with five Boers within a few yards
of the Colonel with their rifles at his breast, there was one man who
went to his death. "I'll see you damned, you God forgotten----" said
Trooper Maltuschek, and he went to his Maker the next moment. The news
of such a catastrophe did not tend to relieve the gravity of the
situation. With the Boers in the fort and in occupation of the stadt,
it was necessary so to arrange our operations that any junction
between the stadt and the fort would be impossible; at the same time
we were compelled to prevent those Boers who were in the stadt from
cutting their way through to the main body of the enemy. The situation
was indeed complex, and throughout the remainder of the day the
skirmishing in the stadt and the repulse of the feints of the enemy's
main body, delivered in different directions against the outposts,
were altogether apart from the siege, which we were conducting within
our own investment. From the town very heavy rifle fire was directed
upon the fort, which the Boers in that quarter returned with spirit
and determination. But the position in the stadt had become acute,
since, behind our outposts and our inner chain of forts, which are
situated upon its exterior border, were a rollicking, roving band of
four hundred Boers, who, for the time being, were indulging in pillage
and destruction wherever it was possible.
[Illustration: The British South Africa Police Fort, Colonel Hore's
Headquarters.
_The Bomb-proof shelter in the foreground was the Colonel's refuge
during the enemy's shell fire._]
Gradually, however, the situation changed. The rifle fire from the
town had forced the Boers back from the limits of the stadt adjacent
to the fort, enabling Inspector Murray and a troop of the Cape Police
and Lieutenant Feltham with his troop of C Squadron to fight their way
to this same border, affording to the town a definite and established
barrier against any possible communication between the enemy in the
fort and the Boers in the stadt. Skirmishing thenceforward progressed
over the entire area of the stadt. Major Godley, with Captain Marsh
and Captain Fitzclarence, and B and D Squadrons, effectively supported
by the Baralongs, chevied and rounded up the Boers from point to
point, until, shortly after noon, they took up a strong position in a
mule kraal and upon the facings of some neighbouring kopjes. To
dislodge these men was the work to which Major Godley now directed his
attention, and, manoeuvring carefully and with discretion, he
surrounded the position upon three sides and emplaced a seven-pounder
under Lieutenant Daniel, of the British South Africa Police, within
two hundred yards of the kopje. The enemy were now compelled to fight
or to surrender, and, refusing the request to surrender, they fought
pluckily, and with such stubbornness that they kept Major Godley's men
some time at bay. But, gradually drawing his circle closer, he poured
in a few terrific volleys and charged the position at the point of the
bayonet. There was a rapid volley from the Boers, but it was of no
avail, and, as the glistening steel was poised for a moment over the
walls of the kraal, a flutter of white from the interior betokened
that at least this body of the enemy had surrendered. Major Godley
then proceeded to shell the kopjes, but the Boers at this point were
not proposing to increase by their numbers those of the twenty-five
who had laid down their arms in the mule kraal. They scattered and
broke into the stadt, fighting from hut to hut, from rock to rock,
from snug hollows to the broken points of the many rugged mounds which
characterise the configuration of the stadt. These skirmishes
continued, and Major Godley contrived to drive the scattered Boers in
the direction of Captain Lord Charles Bentinck, who, so conducting his
operations, managed to hem the enemy in between the fire of Major
Godley and that of his own men. It would have been impossible for the
Boers to escape; but dusk was falling, our men were weak and hungry,
and we already had a number of prisoners, and, after a sharp rally
between the three squadrons, Major Godley instructed Captain Lord
Charles Bentinck to withdraw C Squadron and assist in driving out the
enemy.
These, then, were the events which were occurring in the stadt, and,
if Major Godley had been successful in circumventing the Boer plan and
checking any very definite occupation of the stadt, the outposts had
also successfully repulsed the indifferent and weak-hearted attempts
which General Synman had made to assist his colleague. There had been
a definite plan of attack, and, although a portion of it was
successful, its main features had failed because their execution had
been left to a man who, faint-hearted and cowardly, was altogether
unworthy of the command with which he had been entrusted. Upon General
Synman must fall the responsibility of Commandant Eloff's capture,
inasmuch as he failed to support his share of the operations. The Boer
movement upon the town was carried out with remarkable precision and
extraordinary dash, but, despite their splendid gallantry and
enterprise in penetrating so far within our lines, the fatality which
would seem to attend their attacks upon Mafeking rendered their
present efforts again unprofitable, causing their assault to recoil
upon their own heads. It had been the intention of the Boers to make
the fort the key of a position from which they were proposing to shell
the town with the guns which would have been brought up by the main
body. But General Snyman did not fulfil his obligations to Commandant
Eloff, and, as a consequence, when the siege of the fort had been
effected the little which they could accomplish had been concluded,
and they found themselves compelled to defend their newly-won position
from the galling fire and spirited attacks of the townsmen. Their
position, only seven hundred yards from the town, would have proved
untenable much earlier in the day, had not the Boers secured the
officers and staff of the regimental headquarters as their prisoners.
We should have shelled them and in all probability caused tremendous
carnage; as it was, however, killed and wounded upon either side were
not numerous, although there is some ground to believe that the Boers
were successful in carrying off a large proportion of their wounded.
Upon the following morning, when the returns for the previous day were
made up, it was found that 110 had been taken prisoners, ten had been
killed, and nineteen had been wounded. Our own casualties were four
killed and seven wounded, while there were five natives who had
received slight wounds. These are the figures, correct, so far as we
can ascertain, of this very remarkable day--a day which is almost
without parallel in the history of war, inasmuch as the garrison, who
in themselves had sustained a seven months' siege, were yet able once
more to turn the tables upon their enemy, who, although penetrating
into the heart of the invested town, failed to carry the position.
During the morning of the fight, after accompanying Lieutenant
Montcrieff to Major Hepworth's house, where he was engaged in
installing a section of the Town Guard, I thought that I would attach
myself to Colonel Hore, since his headquarters appeared to be a
central position in the engagement. It was only a short ride--a few
hundred yards. The bullets whistled over from the stadt, and I
scampered rapidly across in order to gain what I thought was
protection from this fire. The light was not clear, and the smoke was
still drifting across the line of vision. Men were standing about the
regimental headquarters, some were scurrying, many were sitting upon
the stoep facing the town. It did not seem to me possible that these
could be Boers; but, as I galloped on, my horse was struck, and,
swerving violently, I found myself pulled up short by a peremptory
demand to surrender. They were Boers, or rather they were the enemy,
for there were Germans, Italians, and Frenchmen, and a few
Republicans.
They ordered me to hold my hands up, they ordered me to give up my
revolver and to get off my horse; they asked me a dozen questions at
the same time, speaking in Dutch, French, and English. As I sat upon
my horse we conducted quite an animated conversation, but the bullets
were coming from our men in town rather rapidly, and it seemed to
strike the Boers that they had best take cover, advice which I pressed
home upon them with much irony. In the meantime I had not dismounted,
nor had I given up my revolver, nor were my arms thrust upwards in the
air. "Will you hold your damned hands up?" said one, playfully
thrusting a rifle into my ribs. "With pleasure, under the
circumstances," I replied with alacrity. "Will you hand over that
revolver?" said another. "What, and hold my hands up at the same
time?" asked I, quibbling to gain a little time in which to think.
"Get off your horse," said another, when, as they unstrapped my belt,
I rolled to the ground. It was only then that I knew my horse had been
shot in the shoulder, and as they dragged me to the shelter of the
building, I asked them to shoot him. They refused. "Your men will do
that soon enough," said they, and it seemed to me that this was the
unkindest cut of all. The poor animal stood there looking at me. When
I saw him again his throat had been cut, and there were seven bullet
wounds in his body.
The fort had surrendered. Colonel Hore, Captain H. C. Singleton,
Veterinary-Lieutenant Dunlop-Smith, with fifteen non-commissioned
officers and men of the Protectorate Regiment, Captain Williams and
three men of the British South Africa Police, and five native servants
were prisoners in the hands of the enemy. Around them were numbers of
the enemy talking rapidly in French, German, Italian, and Dutch, while
there were also many who spoke English. They were all well armed,
carrying some 250 rounds of ammunition with eight days' rations in
their haversacks. Some were eating breakfast, many were drinking from
bottles which they had looted from the regimental mess; occasionally
the group around us was swelled by the numbers of those who, hitherto
engaged in looting the quarters of the officers, were now mostly
anxious to preserve their skins from the fire from the town and to
enjoy an inspection of their plunder. In the short time which the
enemy had been in possession of the fort many of them had ransacked
the premises, breaking open boxes, cutting open bags, and generally
appropriating all the effects which they found. It seemed to me at
this moment that the men engaged in this work were Boers, as distinct
from the foreign element in their force, and I thought that I caught a
current of conversation which was passing in French between two of our
captors, and which denounced the unnecessary and almost wanton
destruction which was in progress.
From the remarks which were passing round us it seemed that the
majority were discussing the precise treatment which should be dealt
out to the prisoners. At this moment Trooper Hayes, deserter,
swaggered towards the circle; he sported Colonel Hore's sword, and a
gold chain and watch dangled from his belt. Hearing the subject of the
conversation, he at once suggested that we should either be made to
stand upon the verandah, a mark to the fire of our own men, or be
given the opportunity of taking up arms and joining in the defence of
the fort. "You cannot do that, I'm a war correspondent," said I in
English to a Boer who was speaking fluent English to a friend. "You be
damned!" said he, pleasantly enough, "we'll put you upon the roof."
But at that moment Commandant Eloff approached and ordered our removal
to a building in the centre of the fort, which hitherto had been used
as the storeroom for the regimental mess. Into this they crowded us,
together with three others who, visiting the fort in ignorance of the
turn of affairs, had likewise been taken prisoners. We were thus
thirty-two, and were confined for the day in a space which was not
only short and narrow, but ill-ventilated, dirty, littered with
rubbish, and already smelling horribly. Firing from town had now begun
in earnest, and the bullets whistled and cracked and spat all round
the fort. They struck upon the stones and spattered the roof with
splinters of rock and lead, while we could detect from these signs how
ably directed and how fierce was the rifle fire which was delivered
from the town. When they had safely secured us in the storehouse the
space in front of the building was at once occupied by some
sixty-seven men, who crouched up against the walls of the house or lay
within the lee of the exterior wall of the fort. From time to time
these men moved to points whence the fire was hottest, seeming to take
their share of the work in pleasing earnestness and with much
keenness. Occasionally those who were without and around the door
handed in fragments of dried meat and broken biscuits, but the
quantity was not great, and there were many of us who had nothing to
eat all day, while few Boers or prisoners had anything to drink. Early
in the morning bullets from the town had perforated the water tanks,
and as a consequence there was no water to drink, nor was there
anything with which to alleviate the sufferings of the wounded. As the
day wore on many casualties occurred among the Boers in the fort, and
the absence of efficient medical aid among his men prompted Commandant
Eloff to appeal to us for assistance, whereupon Veterinary-Lieutenant
Dunlop-Smith, Farrier-Corporal Nichols and Forbes, the regimental
canteen-keeper, offered and rendered valuable services to the wounded
Boers, running the gauntlet of our own fire in the cause of a common
humanity. Early in the fight the Boers took over the Children's
Hospital, which was located some two hundred yards away from the fort,
and in which those devoted nurses, Mrs. Buchan and her sister, Miss
Crawfurd, remained the entire day, attending indiscriminately to the
sick children, to the wounded Boers who were brought there, and
bringing upon two occasions tea to the prisoners. During the progress
of the fight we constantly caught glimpses of the Red Cross flag
escorting one or other of these gallant ladies to points where wounded
Boers were lying. Throughout the fight the Boers respected the
conventions, repeatedly expressing their appreciation and their
gratitude for the services of these ladies. For this courtesy
Commandant Eloff was largely responsible, and indeed if there was any
abuse of the Red Cross flag the blame of such disrespect cannot be
charged against the enemy, since our side, I understand, issued orders
that the men of the firing line were not to take notice of any white
flags which the Boers displayed. The enemy respected its conventions,
treated the prisoners humanely, and behaved throughout a situation
almost maddening from the strain which it must have imposed upon them
with conspicuous gallantry, coolness, and consideration.
In our prison the situation was more than uncomfortable, and when
towards evening they locked the door the atmosphere became fetid, and
was seriously aggravated by the condition of a man who was suffering
acutely from the agonies of dysentery. In a recess, piled up, were
the stores of the regimental mess, comprising principally cases of
liquors--whisky, Beaunne, pommade, and lime-juice. In a big open crate
were tinned provisions of an indefinite character--fruits, peas, and
parsnips, and other canned luxuries. These were at once looted by the
troopers, who in this respect and the indifferent manner in which they
received the orders of their officers, did not set a particularly
praiseworthy example. Within the storehouse, however, the prisoners
mingled irrespective of rank, and mutually sympathetic in the face of
common misfortune. At first every man seemed to be smoking, but
gradually the atmosphere became so bad that it was absolutely
necessary to desist, and all pipes, cigars, and cigarettes were
ordered to be put out. Commandant Eloff returned constantly to the
prisoners, chatting brightly with them and sympathising upon the
fortunes of war. He sat within the door upon a case of Burgundy, his
legs dangling, his accoutrements jingling, and the rowels of his spurs
echoing the tick-tacking of the Mauser rifles. Herein and within our
presence the drama of the situation was slowly passing; orderlies came
and went, but the Commandant, still tapping with his spurs, continued
to issue his instructions and his orders. He seemed to possess the
complete mastery of the situation; his buoyant face was impressed with
the confidence of youth, reflecting the happiness he felt in so much
that his ambition seemed to be about to be realised. But as the
situation became more critical, beneath the brightness of his manner
he seemed to be feeling the gravity of his position. At times he lost
control of himself and complained querulously in Dutch about the
non-appearance of his reinforcements; at other moments he regaled the
prisoners with scraps of information relating to the situation, and by
this means we learnt that Limestone Fort had fallen, and that the
trench beneath the railway bridge had surrendered. This news was, of
course, not particularly pleasing, and it somewhat added to our
dejection when we learnt that, when night arrived, we were to be
marched to the south-western laager and thence to be conveyed to
Pretoria. I never wished less to see a place than I did the Transvaal
capital at this moment. Since Commandant Eloff made himself so
agreeable I was moved to chat with him. We discussed the situation in
China and the feeling which America was showing for the Boers. To this
latter he did not attach much importance, shrugging his shoulders as
he said, "Americans and the English----" The pause was eloquent, and I
changed the conversation, requesting his courteous permission, should
the fortunes of the day go with him, to communicate with the _Times_.
He expressed surprise at my being a correspondent, and said that he
thought the correspondents had more sense than to get themselves
captured. Then he laughed and asked my name. I told him, upon which he
replied, "I have heard of you, but I have not read any of your stuff;
you have been writing unpleasant things about the Boers." I retired
crestfallen to the darkest corner I could find and reflected upon the
character of the punishment which General Snyman would mete out to a
man who had been so iniquitous as to write "unpleasantly about the
Boers." Night was coming on rapidly now, and we were rather glad,
since it removed from us the horror of being with the enemy and
watching while they fired upon our own men. It seems to me that the
strain which emanates from such a sight is more awful than anything
in the world.
As dusk settled down we prisoners, crowding in a small room, could
hear echoes of desperate fighting outside. Bullets penetrated the
wall, perforated the roofing, crashed through the windows, splintered
the door. Ever and anon the fire would die away, breaking out again
spasmodically within a few minutes. Through the grating of the windows
we could see the enemy keeping an alert look-out; we could see them
scurrying and scrambling to defend the points against which the firing
was heaviest; we saw the limping figures of the wounded; we heard
voices cursing us, threatening the prisoners, and urging Commandant
Eloff to handcuff and march us out across the line of fire while the
Boers used us as a screen to escape; while upon one occasion the door
opened suddenly and three wounded Boers precipitated themselves
violently into the room. The inside of the building was pitch dark by
now, and lighted only by the fitful flashing of the rifles, which made
almost a glow within. Straining eagerly at the windows, we caught
glimpses of a number of Boers scrambling over the exterior walls of
the fort, in order, we afterwards learnt, to make good their retreat.
This movement to the rear surprised us and was followed by a terrible
outburst of firing, caused by the order of Commandant Eloff to shoot
down the fugitives. Then time dragged heavily, and we were hungry and
tired and faint when there seemed signs of a rally among the Boers.
After an interval of extraordinarily heavy firing, in which the noise
from the snap of bullets and the reports of the rifles were deafening,
there was a sudden silence. Commandant Eloff rushed to the door, and,
summoning Colonel Hore, stated that if he could induce the town to
cease fire the Boers would surrender. It was an altogether unexpected
_denouement_, and in that moment there was not one amongst us who did
not think that each in his turn was about to be summoned to an instant
execution. We feared a ruse, and whispered to Colonel Hore, as he
advanced to meet the commandant, to be careful. Our momentary
hesitation caused Commandant Eloff to surrender himself as a hostage
until the cessation of fire could be arranged. The Boers, like
ourselves, were unable to grasp the situation, and seeing their
commandant in our midst, made an attempt to rescue him, which only
helped to increase the confusion of the moment. Commandant Eloff
called out, "Surrender, surrender," and endeavoured strenuously to
pacify his men. We, upon our part, shouted to the town to cease fire;
this was at once done, whereupon sixty-seven Boers laid down their
arms, handing them to the prisoners, who piled them up within the
storehouse. Those of us who were not engaged in this work seized
rifles and bandoliers from the heap and manned the defences of the
fort until the prisoners could be delivered into proper custody. The
Boers were then marched off and were found accommodation in the
Masonic Hall and in the gaol. As I retraced my steps to the town and
was passing the stables of the British South Africa Police Fort, the
groaning of a wounded man caught my ear. I ran to him to find that
lying within the shelter of the stables, with a wound through his
thigh, was the man to whom I had surrendered myself in the morning. We
smiled as he handed over to me his rifle and bandolier. My revolver he
had lost, but lying beside him, stiff and dead, with a bullet wound
through his forehead, was, by one of those extraordinary coincidences
which do happen, the man who had shot my horse. And thus this day of
melodrama passed; dramatic in its beginning, dramatic in its
conclusion, with enough bloodshed, firing, and animation to satisfy
the cravings of the most dispassionate seeker after excitement.
Commandant Eloff, Captain von Wiessmann, Captain Bremont, dined at
Headquarters. The town came to greet the prisoners, drink was
unearthed, and everybody seemed to be congratulating somebody upon
their mutual good fortune. We who had been prisoners and were now free
rejoiced in the liberty which was restored to us, yet it was difficult
to restrain oneself from feeling compassionately upon the great
misfortunes which had attended the extraordinary dash and gallantry of
the men who were now our prisoners. They had done their best. They
proved to us that they were indeed capable and that we should have
kept a sharper look-out, while it was indeed deplorable to think that
it was the treachery of their own general, in abandoning them to their
fate, that had been mainly instrumental in procuring them their
present predicament.