The Siege of Kimberley. T. Phelan

heard of it. You might swear you had not, or at the insulting sceptic, but he would neither yield nor apologise. He was always armed with a rifle, and accompanied by three or four men with ammunition. It was a common experience with us to wake up during the night and list to the same old hackneyed dialogue. "Halt!" in a voice of thunder, "who goes there?" "A friend," would be the invariable response, the tone, pitch, and temper of which would be regulated by the "pass" the friend had or had not in his pocket. "Advance, friend, and give the countersign," Excited families would by this time have their heads thrust through the windows to watch the denouement. Satisfactory explanations would generally follow the final command; but occasionally a babel of recrimination would ensue, and become gradually indistinct as the poor law-breaker was hustled off to prison.

      The people, for the most part, sat on their steps, discussing the events of the day, the paucity of news, the doings of the army, the destruction of the Republics and the probability of its easy accomplishment by Christmas (1899). They would break off now and then with a reference to the activity of the searchlight. The searchlight was of powerful calibre and shed a brilliant radiance which, revolving, illuminated the surrounding country. Needless to say, it shone all night; a surprise visit from the Boers was out of the question. We felt light-hearted on Saturday, and profoundly satisfied, that we were too intrepid for the enemy. Our patrols kept vainly seeking to provoke a quarrel. At the camps the "Death of Nelson," and "comic" melodies not less doleful, were rendered with much feeling. At the hospital, the wounded were doing well, and one man was quite himself again. They were extremely well tended, and thanks to public solicitude, were the recipients of countless delicacies, including bottled cheer.

      Thus two weeks were over—well over, it was affirmed. Alas! we had another sixteen to put behind us; but no; nonsense! what am I saying? Even the wags, and everyone was inclined to be waggish in the first great fortnight of faith, never put the number higher than eight, lest their jokes should lose point or their wit its subtlety.

Chapter III

       Table of Contents

Week ending 4th November, 1899

       Table of Contents

      The day of opportunity for reflection was with us again, and since so little occasion for action presented itself we talked about war in peace. The man in the street—omniscient being!—discussed it threadbare on the pavement. A man who knew the Boers was the man in the street. He knew the British army, too, though; and was sanguine of its ability to go one better—the shrewdness of which view was loudly applauded. And he really did much to make morbid people easy, and to lighten the burden of weak minds. The man in the street was respected. It was deemed a privilege to chat on the situation with this exalted personage, whom it took a rare and great occasion to make.

      On the Stoep, after dinner, the history of the 'eighty-one struggle was reviewed and punctuated with commentaries on the character of Mr. Gladstone. The probable date of the relief column's arrival was settled, and the consequent discomfiture of the enemy laughed at. The talk was all of war. The children on their way from Sunday school halted the passer-by to enquire "who goes there"; they formed fours, stood at ease, and shouldered sticks enthusiastically. The natives shut up in the compounds eulogised the sword in their own jargon; they were filled with ambition to lend an assegai in the fray, and to have a cut at the people who treated them as children—with the sjambok!

      It was remarkable the unanimity of opinion which obtained among Kimberley men at the beginning of the campaign with reference to the attitude of the Free State. They were in the first place convinced that war was certain, inevitable, unavoidable; Great Britain would enforce her demands, and the Boers would "never" give way to them. So much was agreed. But the idea of the Free State joining hands with the Transvaal—to stand or fall with it—was ridiculed as a monstrous proposition. England had no quarrel with the Free Staters, and they were not such "thundering fools" as to pick one with England, or to be influenced by shibboleths bearing on the relative thicknesses of blood and water. When, however, we learned how very much mistaken folks may be, the "villainy" of President Steyn was—rather overstated, and the continued independence of his country pronounced an impossibility.

      This was all very well; but it involved some inconsistency, in that we had veered round to the belief that the Transvaal would never have faced the music alone, and without the aid of the neighbouring State! That is to say: war was certain from the beginning; the Free Staters were equally certain to be neutral; but since they were not neutral, responsibility for the war was theirs, and theirs only. Perhaps it was; but how was the view to be reconciled with our previous positiveness to the contrary? As a fact, few were conscious of any weakness in their way of laying down the law, and they (tacitly) admitted their fallibility.

      On Monday the enemy betrayed signs of activity in the building of a redoubt opposite the Premier Mine. This was disappointing; it looked as if the purpose was to place a gun in the redoubt—to shy shells at the Premier. A special edition of the Diamond Fields' Advertiser lent colour to the assumption. The Boers, the special stated, had a gun fixed up at Mafeking, and had actually trained it on that town. The shells, we were assured, had not burst; but (flying) they could hit a man in the head, we thought. Whence they (the Boers) got the gun was a puzzle to not a few; and how they managed to make it "speak" was beyond the comprehension of others. "They might have another gun," these people exclaimed in horror! They might indeed; the question soon ceased to be one of speculation, for when a body of the Light Horse attempted to cross the Free State border, the boom of "another gun" was unmistakably real. Shell after shell was burled at the Light Horse; none of them were hit, and not having bothered bringing artillery with them, they were unable to retaliate.

      Later in the day an express rider made his way through the Boer lines. The most interesting news he was able to impart was summed up in the Proclamation he carried in his pocket. It bore reference to the prohibition by the Governor of the sale of arms and ammunition throughout the Cape Colony. It was feared that the Africanders might buy the goods and throw them across the border; it had been done. But information in disproof of this was forthcoming when the story reached us that a number of the Cape Dutch had risen in rebellion and needed the weapons for themselves! Kimberley's voice at once favoured the extreme penalty—death for high treason! Even moderate men, who allowed for racial sympathies, held that neutrality was in the circumstances the proper attitude to assume. But the local extremist—and he was the man of the hour—argued that the object of the rebels was to sweep the English into the sea, and to make Africa the exclusive privilege of the Africander. In the evening, a terrific explosion was heard; a dynamite magazine had been blown up at Dronfield. It was stated that some people went up along with it; but that part of the story has yet to be verified.

      All this made Wednesday an interesting day, but the gallant Colonel had yet to crown it with his quota. Having previously omitted to fix a charge for meal and flour, he now brought back to their normal modesty the prices of the two commodities. The two hardly provided sufficient material for a proclamation, but with some stretching they were made to do so. It was easy to discover a disparity in the relative quantities of the two foodstuffs in Kimberley; we had a great deal of the one, and comparatively little of the other. Thus when Kekewich in his wisdom deemed it prudent to take precautions, the populace did not object. We knew in our wisdom that precautions were superfluous, but we approved, in a general way, the principle of prudence. The proclamation accordingly ordained that every loaf baked in future should be three parts meal and one part flour. The bakers were given the recipé gratis, with instructions to sell it (the bread, not the recipé) cheaply, namely, at three pence per loaf. Theoretically, the new loaf was to prove a palatable change; practically, the wry expression of countenance it evoked in the process of mastication demonstrated the contrary. The bread was light "khaki" in colour, and only in this respect was it fashionable;—not too fashionable, because "Boer meal" was its chief ingredient, and racial prejudice was strong. The sweetness of the old-fashioned white loaf was wanting, and we soon clamoured for its