The whirligig of the enemy (time, not the Boer, not the "Law") had again carried us to the beginning of another week. The Sundays were now exceedingly dull, and on the particular Sabbath with which I am dealing little worthy of record came within the sphere of my observations. I shall therefore—in the absence of matter of graver import—take advantage of its Sunday silence to say a word or two about theDiamond Fields' Advertiser. The views of the besieged in regard to their local print had undergone a change. They had at one time been proud of their paper. It had formerly been conducted on well-defined principles; and it was its departure from these principles to thestatusof an "Organ" that preached, but which at the frown of a Draconic Colonel practised not its articles—it was this that brought down upon its head the wrath of the local democracy. The authorities had for a while permitted the paper to publish war-scraps; but whether it was due to a tendency on the Editor's part to expand these allowances, the privilege was withdrawn and scraps were proscribed. Even the fiction in the columns of our journal was subjected to a rigid censorship; and when the Public had expected it to be voicing their protests against the Russian government of the day, the paper was virtually in Slavonic hands and controlled by theCzarhimself. Its eight large pages had been reduced to four small ones, which became better known as the "Official Gazette" of the district. But though we read in it garrison orders from time to time, the three-penny novelette of the town would have been a more fitting designation. It had once quoted from a London contemporary a statement to the effect that hundreds of lives had been thrown away at Magersfontein in an attempt to rescue Cecil Rhodes! Our "Organ" was then independent enough to retort that there was, besides Mr. Rhodes, the fate of thousands of British subjects to be considered. But now it was far otherwise; the independence of tone had vanished. Instead of dignified sarcasm, we were apologetically regaled with parallels of all the sieges in the world's history—Troy, Plevna, Sebastopol, Paris, etc.—and calmly assured that our tribulations weighed lightly in the balance with what was suffered in the brave days of—"wooden" horseflesh!
Still the journal, though it evoked the displeasure of its quondam admirers, doubtless acted for the best in a difficult situation; and there were many who might have overlooked the "parallels" were it not for the advertisements. For through the advertising columns we were perpetually being pressed by the merchants of the city to come in and buy everything that makes life worth living! All the dainties an aspirant to gout could wish for were, according to our "Official Gazette," to be had for the asking. At the hotels, "Highland Cream Whiskey" was for ever arriving; and "O.K." (another thistle!) kept "licking 'em all" with monotonous invincibility. Iced beer was on tap; thechampagne was sparkling; the wine needed no bush. The cheese was still alive (on paper). Cakes, hams, jams, biscuits, potted fish, flesh, and good red herring were, so to speak, all over the shops. This was the sort of pabulum our morning sheet supplied by way of breakfast for inward digestion, and there was an irony in the meal which its uniqueness did not help to make palatable. Absent-minded people still went shopping for luxuries gone but not forgotten; to provoke a premature "April fool" from the startled grocer, who was powerless to make real the chimeras that haunted the jungles of the shoppers' imaginations. Even practical (new) women would sometimes think of Bovril, and rush off to buy it all up, only to find that it had been bought up long ago, and that not for nothing had so much money been expended in the booming of that bullock in a bottle! Our boarding-house tariffs were ridiculously low (the paper said) at seven or eight pounds per month; while the allurements of the boating and the creature comforts of Modder River, and the balminess of its breezes, were dangled before our eyes with aggressive cynicism. The shipping agents were most attentive to detail in regard to the departure of vessels from Cape ports—just as if the availability of aerial tugs, to convey us to the coast, went without saying. Such were the irritating features of our morning paper. Their humour was utterly lost on us; they only served to sharpen the unhappy appetites of all whose fatal misfortune was ability to read.
Nasty stories had been told with reference to the reign of terror to be inaugurated on Monday. But they did not materialise; the rule of Martial Law—bad tobeat—remained unbeatable. Theexpectedrarely happened, and peace was oftener than not the characteristic of the prophets' red-letter-day. Such occasions gave us scope and opportunity to discuss theKabalthat ran her Majesty's writ, and to wonder whether it (the writ) should ever again be pacemaker to the people's will. The spectacle of a number of Union Jacks floating on the breeze was the most startling incident of the day. What did the transformation mean? A wild conjecture seized us; it was a moment of unalloyed joy when the fond thought of Kimberley's relief having been accomplished during the night flashed across our minds. But our jubilation was short-lived, for the Boers presently fired a salute with intent clearly to tatter rather than honour the Flag—in defence of which Long Cecil, tattered itself, was unable to play a part.
The echoes of a heavy cannonade were the feature of Tuesday. This led us to infer that the much-vaunted "siege train" (which was the talk of the city) had begun its work of devastation. The inspiration of itself would not have been the harbinger of consolation—we were long listening to sound and fury, meaning nothing—but we were quick to associate it with the unfurling of the Flag, to put the two "straws" together—and sigh!
"The Column," our Gazette asserted, "had made a most successfulreconnaissance." But experience had taught us how to estimate a bald, non-committal statement of that kind. Our faith in the Column had been shaken; so much so that cynics hummed, with impunity, that the "little British army goes a long, long way." We dared to doubt the bellipotence of theColumn. The wisdom of self-help was brought home to us at last. We were fast learning to put not our trust in Columns, and to ponder the possibility, handicapped though we were, of hewing from within a way to freedom.
Meanwhile Long Cecil, successfully treated, was again in the arena. A few "compliments" were jerked at the Kamfers Dam Laager; the Boers were made to feel that they had a foeman to deal with worthy of their lead. The success of the gun and the skill of him who made it were on every lip. The theme occasioned as much enthusiasm as could be expected from hearts saddened by disconsolation. And the man in the moon, too far distant to betray the grimness of his smile, looked silently on. Favourable accounts of the progress of events in Natal conduced to the serenity of the evening. The night was so still and grand that it seemed almost a pity to seek refuge in repose; and when ultimately we did persuade ourselves to retire it was to dream of Long Cecil and his potentialities—a sanguine dream of self-reliance and ability to burst our bonds.
But, oh! what a change came over its spirit in the middle of the night; when startled from our slumbers by the hissing of shells in the streets we awoke to a sense of what was real. In the blackness of the early morning it was hard to connect the booming of cannon with reality. The shells were falling and bursting in rapid succession. It was the inauguration of a nerve-ordeal; the prelude to a terrible day; the beginning of a bombardment long-sustained and fierce.
Not for long did the guns blaze in vain. A younggirl lay dead, struck down in the privacy of her bedroom. Shell after shell came whistling through the air, jeopardising the reason of scared women, in terror for the safety of their children. Men rushed about everywhere seeking shelter for their families. A gentleman walking in the Dutoitspan Road had his hat unroofed, and a young lad was prematurely put out at elbow by a piece of shell which passed through the sleeve of his coat. Half a score of guns poured forth a heavy fusillade until eight o'clock, when a short interval for breakfast was conceded.
Fast and furious fell the instruments of destruction into every street and alley that throbbed with human life—smashing tables and delfware, ripping up floors, and spreading alarm abroad in the land. The Public Library was the recipient of a missile that played havoc with a hoary tome. Public buildings and churches were peppered indiscriminately. Saint Cyprian's—ventilated before in the same accidental fashion—was holed again. All Saints' fared little better. The Catholic Cathedral was slightly damaged. Saint Augustine's was hit; and, judging by its battered walls, the Dutch Reformed Church went nearer to demolition than any other. No structure with any pretensions to size escaped. The Town Hall was subjected to a fierce assault; for into the Market Square, to the right and left of the hall, in front and in rear, the shells fell in abundance. But the solid walls of the building were not tested, which was strange in view of its exposed position and the large area it covered. Inside, the busy officials were hard at work, pandering to the needs of the hungry throng who sought dispensations fromstarvation, and who dared not venture out again lest they should die hungry withal. The Town Hall towered impregnable—impervious to the myriad battering-rams that yearned to lay it low. As if it had occurred to them that the chances rather favoured finding the Mayor at home, the Boer gunners subsequently launched through the roof of his store in Jones' Street a shower of shrapnel which riddled the occupants of a compartment in the upper storey. The Mayor, fortunately, was not one of these; when the smoke cleared away it was found that the injured consisted of some handsome wax figures. At Beaconsfield a youth was struck, and another projectile went so near to putting a poor old woman, who lay upon a sick bed, beyond the borders of eternity that her feeble limbs were deprived of the couch's solace. An Indian subject of the Queen had his bungalow shattered. Not even the hallowed sanctuary of the "Law's" guardians was held sacred, for a missile telescoped a policeman's helmet—which, happily, was off its head at the moment.
All day long existence was made well-nigh unendurable. None knew the moment when an account of one's individual stewardship might be demanded. It is in trials of this kind that mankind is most vividly impressed with the reality of being in life and death simultaneously. That these trials surpassed any that had hitherto ruffled the noiseless tenor of our way was a truism. But coming at a moment when our nerves were sufficiently unstrung by the dearth of tonics, they were doubly enervating. Stomachal grievances were forgotten, and few ventured to desert the imaginary security of their homes to face the risks the redress ofgrievances would entail. Thus did the hours creep on until darkness with its interregnum of peace had fallen on the city.
But the interregnum was of brief duration, for, to our unspeakable horror, the bombardment was resumed at nine o'clock. If in the clear light of day the shells were trying, what were they in the night! A ghost story well told in the daytime perturbs a superstitious mind; but to feel queer at its recital in the night one need not necessarily be superstitious at all. This new departure intensified the strain and went far to make faint many a heart that had until then remained stout. The guns were fired with longer intervals between the shots; the shells did not follow on the top of one another as in the day; but one nocturnal projectile excited as much terror as did ten when the sun was shining. Far into the night—for hours after midnight—the war was waged, and sleep denied the pleasure of steeping our "senses in forgetfulness." To sleep was nearly impossible, and at the first peep of dawn to recline on a bed at all was not easy, so fierce and sudden was the energy with which a dozen guns commenced to bark in chorus.
And with sad results. The men in the redoubts enjoyed comparative immunity from the dangers of the bombardment; it was mainly the women and children in the houses who had to bear the brunt of the assaults. A lamentable instance of the pity of it was only too soon forthcoming. In the house of a Mr. Webster (who was in camp with his regiment, the Volunteers) his wife and children were at breakfast, when crash! through the roof came a shell on top ofthe tea-pot. The mother sustained fearful injuries, to which she subsequently succumbed. Her six-year-old child was also killed; her second son had his leg and arm broken; while her youngest child—a little girl—was badly bruised. The stricken family were removed to hospital amid a shower of shells, which continued with unabashed fury to seek whom they slaughter. Nearly all our public buildings were hit, and the places of worship were again a mark for the vandal. Houses everywhere were damaged, and extraordinary indeed were the escapes of their distracted occupiers. No less gracious was the kindly fortune that shielded those whom duty, caprice, or foolhardiness brought into the streets. One family stuffed away in the ostensible security of a coal-hole vegetated there all day. They were grateful for their modern ark, but outraged nature disapproved and caused a shell to pierce it. Nobody was hurt, remarkable to relate, and the frightened household ascended with alacrity to take their chances in a purer atmosphere. In every part of the town the shells kept falling. Beaconsfield appeared to be the most favoured hunting ground, for itsSanatoriumwas not only a colossal structure but the home of the Colossus himself. Hundreds of shells dropped in its vicinity, while the millionaire went round the city in a cart, to all outward seeming as little concerned as the most penurious of men. Some weeks before a grazier who had fallen into the hands of the Boers had been assured that it was Rhodes they wanted—not Kimberley. Such a revelation in the case of a personality less notable or less esteemed might have made things awkward for him.
Forty-five minutes were allowed for lunch—an interval which the Boers considered long enough for them—and no doubt for us, too, since they might fairly assume that we did not get much to eat. But on our side there was the trouble and delay involved in the getting of it. To jostle about in a crowd for an indefinite period of time for sake of a scrap of flesh meat—and such meat! such flesh!—required rare ravenousness of appetite; and the bursting of a shell in the midst of a surging mass of humanity was so certain to be attended by fatal results that it was only the very healthy who bothered battling for so little.
The forty-five minutes were of brief duration, and the assault was promptly renewed when the clock struck two. First came the boom; then the warning whistle; next the boom of a second gun almost before the bursting crash of the first shell had proclaimed its contact withterra firma. It was not the numbers of the killed (because they were marvellously few) that awed the people so much as the possibilities of the situation. The guns were fired at long range, and ten or fifteen seconds had to elapse ere anybody could be sure that his turn had not come. Had a closer range been feasible the bombardment might have been more destructive, but the suspense would have been less trying. The shells fell thickly the whole afternoon. Never, hardly ever, was there a lull as the iron roofs of the houses continued to be fitted for service as rough observatories which enabled us to see balloons indeed. Several mourners attending a funeral on its way to the cemetery narrowly escaped dismemberment, by a missile which dropped behind the hearse. The FireBrigade were alert and ready for contingencies; the brigade station at the Municipal compound was singled out for attack; and it looked as if the skill of the Boers in picking out and disabling theOfficersin the field extended to the town, for the Chief of the firemen was struck while standing on his own doorstep. He received a few ugly cuts, as also did two of his children.
And where all this time, it may be asked, where was Long Cecil? Long Cecil had been doing its best, but with the odds so long as ten to one against, its best was a negligible quantity. It sent shell after shell in one direction, then in another, but the enemy heeded it not at all; and though it may have irritated the Boer a little and done all that one gun of its calibre could do, it did not mitigate the perils of the populace. That it had done its best was undeniable, but it sank in the public esteem for other reasons. It was reputed to have killed two women in the Boer camp with its "compliments." I cannot vouch for the truth of the story, but it was seized upon to intensify the growing aversion to the whilom bepraised product of Colonial enterprise. The report converted hostile head-shakes into voluble "I told you so's," and swelled the feeble chorus that had prophesied ill of Long Cecil from the beginning.
Why did the Military insist on aggravating the enemy? This was our new shibboleth. We had, practically speaking, been left unmolested until Long Cecil sounded its timbrel. Hence the bloody sequel! Now, all this would have been in better taste had not those of us loudest in the gun's condemnation been equally boastful anent the fear it was to put into thehearts of the Boers. They were to be taught that Long Cecil was a thing to conjure with. In fact, Long Cecil had accentuated what is known in vulgar parlance as the Jingo spirit. But it had failed to come up to expectations, and all that was left—the dregs of our chivalry—was gone; and perhaps the highest form of chivalry extant now-a-days is consistency. The forty-eight hours' bombardment had been threatened long ere Long Cecil emerged from the workshop in the panoply war. But it was enough for the nonce to have even an inanimate scape-goat with which to relieve our grief—in the absence of something mellow todrownit in.
Firing ceased at six o'clock, and many families, waiving the discomforts of the trek, had already betaken themselves to the redoubts, away from the centre of assault. They remained there all night, needlessly, as it happened. Friday was not looked to with any particular pleasure; but apart from some deliberate attempts to snap-shot theSanatoriumwe had little to disturb us. The device of fixing the lens on the local library was next resorted to; a shell dropped on its doorstep, and Beaconsfield church had a like experience. One or two guns kept firing irregularly all day. A shell entered a kitchen and made a complete wreckage of its culinary appliances. Long Cecil, at this stage, made some excellent practice, upsetting presumably the kitchen at Kamfers Dam, as several women were among those who fluttered hither and thither for shelter. Long Cecil was a surprise to the Boers; they had heard of the gun, and inclined to regard its existence as a myth. They had laughed at the visionary who had tried to piece ittogether; and there were not a few among ourselves who had shared their incredulity.
The proceedings of the previous two days had banished any timidity that had existed hitherto in the ranks of the town's defenders. They were eager for a fight. The sweetness of revenge was appreciated in some measure, and those who might in other circumstances have shirked personal danger, or collapsed in its presence, had their nerves steeled for a fair and square encounter. Our defences were never tested; we were beginning to wish they were. A determined and persevering effort on the Boers' part might have made them masters of Kimberley. The victory, however, would have been of thePhyrricorder.
Saturday came. The common trials of the great bombardment had lulled the food warfare, and the thoughts of all were directed to the provision of adequate protection for life and limb. The erection of forts and shelters was going on everywhere. The work had been inaugurated when the bombardment was at its height, and the muscular energy it brought into play was magnificent. The "boys" (natives) were kept at it likeTrojans, under the personal supervision of their respective white chiefs; and the chiefs themselves, unaccustomed though they were to an implement less mighty than the pen, perspired beadily and willingly with the pick and shovel. Even the ladies, regardless of blisters and the snowy whiteness of their hands, revelled in the role of navvy. Hallowed little garden patches were ruthlessly excavated; converted into "dug-outs"—disagreeably suggestive of the grave—and these were covered over and hedged in with sacksof earth. The apartments thus improvised were excellent in their way, but somewhat damp and dismal. They were not strictly well ventilated, but the atmosphere without was so redolent of smoke and powder that sanitation had lost in importance. Moreover, one could always stick one's head out of the burrow to inhale the outer air if it were considered fresher than what saluted the nostrils within. Of course these shelters did not offer so much security from danger as their occupiers fancied (I have already instanced how the recesses of a coal-hole had not been proof against invasion); but they were splinter proof. If husbands and fathersdidmagnify the protection they afforded, their motives were kind.
In the meantime we were not left entirely unmolested. The BeaconsfieldSanatoriumcontinued to be the chief object of Boer solicitude. Smokeless powder was being employed, and the boom of the particular guns in action was not audible, or, if audible, so faintly as to be mistaken for the Column's artillery. We had a man placed on the Conning Tower whose duty it was to blow a warning whistle at sight of the flame of the enemy's fuse. But the whistle—not always heard—was only too apt to be connected with a policeman in distress.
The forty-eight hours' ordeal was not repeated, and interest in eating matters was soon revived. The comparative calm of Saturday incited us to have recourse to all sorts of tricks to unearth what was eatable. The Soup Kitchen was a huge success, and had they not been already well endowed with this world's goods the distinguished waiters in charge of the department might have waxed rich. Thousands of pints were servedout daily; indeed there was never a supply sufficient to feed the multitudes that swarmed round the cauldrons containing this deliciouselixirof life. One of the most remarkable sights of the Siege was, not the gravity of doctors, lawyers, directors, etc., presenting tickets for soup—thatwas piquant enough—but the number of young ladies, votaries of fashion, who emerged from themeleebedraggled and flushed with their pails ofnectar, to all appearances not only forgetful of theconvenances, but beaming with smiles of triumph. It may have been because their charms were enhanced, artful wenches! Enhanced, in any case, their charms were.
The Kitchen was booming, but the generality of people had in their enthusiasm so far failed to observe that the quality of the soup had sadly deteriorated. It had been degenerating day by day. Condiments were no longer available; mealie meal was withheld, and the soup had thus become thinner and less seasoned. But the trade had been established, and business continued brisk. There was no competition (unfortunately), and our newspaper kept assuring us with unnecessary gush that horseflesh was excluded from the Kitchen, and that accidents were impossible. The meat used was strictly orthodox. The Press dilated speciously on the economy practised under the system and on its general advantageousness. Universal confidence was reposed in the Soup Directorate.
But, alas and alack! one fatal day an evil-minded fellow got a lump of something solid in his jug, and instead of holding his peace he held apost-mortemexamination and essayed to prove by some Darwinian process of reasoning that the opaque thing was moreapish than orthodox! Prior to the date of this inquest, however, people had grown so habituated to the soup that they could not give it up if they would. They went on dutifully consuming it—just as everybody still does his beer, the recent poisoning revelations notwithstanding. They ate all they could get of it; it was in truth an indispensable necessity. The Kitchen was a blessing—in disguise, the wits said—and the most aesthetic, though not without misgivings, in the end gave the broth the benefit of the doubt. Only a small band of martyrs elected to bleed at the shrine of principle; they declined to stultify their stomachs with "horse soup." This was a reckless assumption, indicative of a shocking disbelief in human nature; an inexpedient conclusion. They were all honourable men on the Kitchen Committee. What! all? the reader may exclaim. Well, all but one, perhaps—who told an interviewer in London that "horseflesh made excellent soup!" But that was long afterwards; and, moreover, proved nothing. The gentleman in question no doubt acted discreetly, before unbosoming himself, in placing six thousand miles of sea between him and the Kitchen. For that matter greater iniquities than his have been condoned to give prejudice a fall.
The Italian and American Consuls had protested on behalf of their respective governments against the recent indiscriminate assault upon non-combatants. We were pleased to hope that the protests were not unavailing. They were in conformity with the spirit, if not with the letter, of International Law; and it was stated that the Boers desired to stand well with any and every nation that might possibly make realtheir Utopian dream of European intervention. Of course, they were doing well alone; it is conceivable that they now felt less the need of extraneous assistance. Their energy and enterprise betokened self-reliance; the will with which they used their picks and shovels was enigmatical to the British mind. They seemed metaphorically to defy all Europe and America. And the reply received by the Consuls was quite in accord with a consciousness on the Boer side of "splendid isolation." It suggested that they (the Boers) would esteem it a privilege to provide the protesters with an escort to convey them to a place of safety, if that would satisfy. It didnotsatisfy, and there the correspondence ceased.
It was thus the week ended—the enemy active, vigorous, supercilious; while we in Kimberley felt fretful, hungry, and sick at heart; but too thoroughly inured to hardship to shrink from or even to question the duty of fighting the battle to the bitter end.
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 morninguncontaminated by themiasmaof 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 ofarmingKimberley, 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 ofmen, 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. Hisapologia, 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 picturesquecanardswe 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)beforeit 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 toKimberley, 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 theSanatoriumlanded 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, likeSancho 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 actualdoingof 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 themenuthe day's allowance of sugar was only too apt to be recklessly monopolised in givingthata 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!" TheCommissariatreckoned 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 forsuch 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 theSanatorium; 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 usdisplayed by our Rulers was not calculated to improve themoraleof 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 thelockhad 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, "horseonly" was flaunted in the market place. The arrangement saved the butchermuch 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 ontwopints! We could yet buy carrots, dry, tough little things; but they were vegetables beyond question, and there is much in anamewhere horses arecooked. 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. Thequasi-official statement relative to the relief of Mafeking was contradicted. The peculiarity of the proceeding—of contradicting anagreeablecanard—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 besubordinated 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 theLondon 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 itto 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—wherehalfa 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 adernier ressort. Who could tell?
The enterprise displayed was admirable; but—hadwe 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 theabsoluteprepensities 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.
The pen-ultimate Sunday of our captivity was notable for nothing but the average crop of rumours which had characterised every day of our Siege existence. The listlessness of the people stood out in marked contrast to their sanguine outlook when the Siege was young, and when the folly of prophesying unless one knew remained not only, as it were, unsmoked but outside our pipes altogether. Still—to pursue the metaphor—our pretensions in the role of prophet had clearly ended in smoke. Happily, the disillusioning fog had come upon us by degrees. The cheerfulness with which we had resigned ourselves to bear the first-class misdemeanant's treatment of a cut and dry "three weeks'" imprisonment but exemplified, we had thought in all seriousness, the traditional sporting instincts of our race; and though it was not over-pleasing to our traditional pride, the destruction of our dogmas had not been taken to heart. Our faith in the invincibility of the British army had long continued unshaken. The interval between the expiry of the period (of three weeks) which with the collective wisdom of all the wizards we had decreed to be a synonym for the Siege's duration, and the morning of the pronouncement relative to the advance of the Column from Orange River, had had its tedium neutralised bya cheerful vituperation of Gladstone's defective statesmanship in the year of 'eighty-one and his wicked efforts at a later date to "give Ireland away too." The move from Orange River had occasioned general rejoicings. Unaccountable delay ensued. One disappointment was followed by another. Anxiety began to manifest itself. The dire stage of doubt was reached. Hunger, thirst, and horseflesh succeeded in due order; until at last we saw:—