Part 4 (1/2)

The Boer guns continued to sing inexplicably dumb; Wednesday was dull.

The ladies, who had been pretty free in their criticisms of the Boers, were saying hard things of people nearer home. They had a grievance against the butcher and his manipulation of the meat. The clamour at the shambles of the butcher despot was growing in volume. Hungry ma.s.ses crowded the shops, and that some should emerge meatless from the melee was inevitable. Nepotism was reputed to be much in vogue. The Colonel had curbed the meat vendors in the matter of price; a strictly limited number of oxen were slaughtered daily, but the number was sufficient to provide everyone with his or her half-pound of flesh. This arrangement, however, was to some extent rendered nugatory by cute people who had what was pithily termed ”a leg” of the butcher. Thus a ”friend,” or a monied acquaintance, could get as much meat as he could eat (a good deal!)--which amounted to the legitimate share of perhaps half a dozen starving creatures who had cash in the bank! In practice the system of distribution did not work well; the State interference was no doubt a blessing; but it was a mixed blessing.

On Thursday a mounted force re-visited Carter's Farm to entice the Boers into battle. In pursuance of this purpose some sh.e.l.ls were expended; but the Boers disregarded the challenge. The rumour-monger, who had an explanation for everything, interpreted their silence to mean that the guns had been requisitioned to oppose the advance of Methuen, who did not seem to be making great headway. One of the sights of Thursday was a _khaki_ horse! We were in this connection accustomed to such diversity of shades as black, grey, white, and brown; but a painted quadruped had never before been seen in Kimberley. The authorities were responsible for the painter's a.s.sault on the lily. It would appear that a high percentage of white and grey horses had been shot in the several sorties; hence the necessity of varnis.h.i.+ng the survivors. The white animals were more discernible to the eye behind a Mauser. Condy's Fluid was the ”varnish” utilised; and curious to relate, one n.o.ble steed was, not khaki, but _green_ after treatment. Perhaps he wanted to be shot.

A fund for the benefit of the families whose bread-winners had fallen in the defence of Kimberley was opened on Friday. The right man put the collection in motion; Mr. Rhodes, on behalf of De Beers, headed the list of subscriptions with ten thousand pounds. The Diamond Syndicate followed with two thousand. The Mayor, with the sanction of the Town Council, gave two hundred; and the citizens' ”mites” were very decent indeed. It was also decided to erect a memorial in honour of the dead; for this object seven hundred pounds was subscribed. The Refugee Committee continued to perform their duties with unabated energy. It was creditable to all concerned that nothing was left undone to lighten the burden of the poor; and the deftness--not to speak of the charity--of the ladies in the scooping out of meal and sugar was admirable.

Sat.u.r.day was heralded in by the music of the Column's cannon, which verily had charms to soothe our savage b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It was lyddite melody; the lyddite sh.e.l.ls were singing. It was a siege article of faith, a siege truism, that the Boers could not long stand up to a British bombardment; and it was an accepted dogma that lyddite was the article utilised to knock them down. We had read and heard (and magnified) much of what lyddite could do; our ideas of its decimating powers were elephantine--and _white_ at that. Sometimes we pitied the Boers; but were not cognisant, of course, in such weak moments, of the disinfecting qualities of bottled vinegar; we did not then know that a portable cruet formed part and parcel of each burgher's kit. It did not need a protest from General Joubert against the use of lyddite to confirm our impressions of what it could do. The local Press was alarmingly eloquent on lyddite; we read not only of what it _could_ do, but consistent accounts of what it had actually _done_. At a certain battle, for example, a lyddite sh.e.l.l fell among seventy Boers; and when the smoke cleared away only eight remained alive, seven of whom were asphyxiated by the fumes! We were glad that one escaped. Many similar tales were printed for our delectation, and our credulity--being of the siege order--was pathetically fine.

In the afternoon we opened fire with our big gun. The Boers retaliated with unusual fury, and, I am sorry to add, with unusual effect, for in the duet, which lasted several hours, a missile killed Sergeant-Major Moss and wounded six men. The death of Mr. Moss caused very general regret; like many who had gone before him, he was a well-known townsman; like others, too, he left a wife to mourn him. The body of a white lad who had disappeared some weeks before was discovered on Sat.u.r.day; and these two additions brought up our total of deaths to forty-four. It may be well to explain that the list included three or four natives. The natives are human beings; but some people cannot see it.

So closed the fifty-sixth day of the siege. Two months had rolled by, at traction engine speed. Some impatience manifested itself; the food was all wrong. But we looked forward, and were sustained by the ultra-jolly Christmas that would be ours. The few who had promised themselves an Antipodean Yuletide in the frost--or slush--of merry England could not keep their words. The most would have to be made of the coast towns.

What an exodus it would be! To sniff the salt air; to fight our battles over again; to fondle the missing (gastric) links that would litter the Christmas table! The ”greater number” could not of course go far from the Diamond City. But Modder River was near. There were the time-honoured annual excursions to that modest watering-place and now famous battlefield to excite the imagination, where ”sh.e.l.ls” could be gathered of more historic value than the ”common” ones by the sea.

CHAPTER IX

_Week ending 16th December, 1899_

The pleasures of Sunday were on the wane. The outbreak of war had detracted little from its peace; but its dinners were--oh, so different!

Sunday had formerly been in the main an occasion of abandonment to the joy of eating. The propriety of such a custom may be open to question; but we had turned over a new leaf--until the perusal of the old one would be feasible again. Our bad habits were compulsorily in abeyance: the ”good tables” were gone. The Simple Life is a splendid thing, but unless _voluntarily_ adopted it sheds all its splendour. Delicacies had long been falling victims to galloping consumption, and at this date had totally succ.u.mbed to the disease. Worse still, the ”necessaries” were more or less infected, and disposed to go the way of the dainties. Meat troubles maddened everybody. The beef was _all_ neck. Everybody said so.

Not one in ten, it seems, ever managed to secure a more tender morsel from the flesh of these remarkable bovine _phenomena_ (for they _were_ oxen, not giraffes!) The meat was indiscriminately chopped up in the shambles, and the odd one (in ten) who had not his legal complement of ”neck” alloted him was just as likely to be given for his share--to take or leave--a nose, his due weight of tail, a teat or two, or a slab of suet, as any more esteemed ration from the rib. It was laid down that favouritism had no place in Martial Law; but we were not _all_ Medes and Persians in Kimberley. The rush for meat between six and eight o'clock in the morning was one of the sights of the siege: It sometimes happened that people, after a long wait, would throw up the sponge in despair and go home meatless; the odds were that they had not missed much, but their grievance was not the less real, nor their ”language” the more correct, on that account. There were persons who never _tried_ to get meat; and they were probably the wisest--'the world knows nothing of its greatest men.' In the scramble for precedence a fight occasionally ensued. The special constable did his best to keep order; but he had only a truncheon; he had no other weapon, not even a helmet--that awe-inspiring utensil!--to cow the mult.i.tude. Numbers of people deliberately transgressed the ”Law” by turning out at _five_ in the morning to make sure of their meat; and the Summary Court was kept busy fining these miscreants ten s.h.i.+llings each, with the usual ”oak.u.m” alternative. One lady (in a letter to the Editor) drew a vivid picture of the rush for meat. She had travelled a good deal, she told us, and had ”roughed it”

on Boxing nights; she had been (unaffectionately) squeezed to suffocation in London. But nowhere outside the Diamond Fields had she encountered the rudeness that springs from ten thousand empty stomachs!

Who now shall say that hunger is good sauce?

There were, besides meat troubles, minor grievances increasing every day. A plate of porridge was a thing of the past; and milk of course was an _antediluvian_ quant.i.ty! All the tinned milk had been commandeered for the hospital. n.o.body objected to the priority of that inst.i.tution's claims; but it was complained that the quant.i.ty commandeered was excessive, unnecessarily large. Eggs were one and a penny _each_ (each egg!), which sum few could afford to pay, and a number, whose economic souls revolted at it, declined to pay, through sheer respect for proportion. There was nothing to fall back on but ”mealie-pap,” an imitation porridge, made of fine white mealie meal; the very colour of if tired one; white stirabout, connoisseurs opined, was not a natural thing. There were scores who would not touch ”mealie-pap” with a forty-foot spoon. But they changed in time; ”I am an acquired taste,”

cries Katisha; so is ”mealie-pap.” We acquired the taste for it, just as people do for tomatoes (where were they!) or a gla.s.s of vinegar and water. This hew porridge was not new to the natives; they dissipated on it three times a day, and were satisfied so long as they had sugar to make it doubly fattening. It was all so unlike the piping times of peace! Sunday was now a bore, productive chiefly of _ennui_. On Monday one could at least scour the town in search of something to eat; and many a coolie shop was invaded by bluffers, dressed in the ”little brief authority” of a Town Guard's hat, who endeavoured to bully the coolie into unearthing hidden stores. But to no avail; the coolie was not to be frightened, nor even excited, by hat or pugaree. His stock of good things had indeed been reduced to lozenges, sugar-sticks, and other dental troubles.

Nothing startling was expected on Monday; but we were disappointed. The noise sounded like the roar of thunder; we had heard similar sounds emanate from Modder River; but these were undoubtedly louder and nearer.

It soon became evident that they could not be thunder-claps; they were too continuous and unceasing. We listened for six hours to the incessant booming of British artillery--the finest in the world! What else could it be! Would there be a Boer left, we asked ourselves, would one survive to depict the carnage around him. The guns in action must have numbered forty or fifty. Soon a great rush was made for the debris heaps on the Reservoir side--whence, through a gla.s.s, the sh.e.l.ls could be seen bursting in rapid succession at Spytfontein. Strong though the position admittedly was, its defenders could never resist a cannonade so awful.

It was the famous, disastrous battle of Magersfontein that was in progress. But of that we then knew nothing. We knew not that hundreds of the Highland Brigade lay dead, nor that while Kimberley was br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with enthusiasm at the prospect of immediate freedom, dismay was rampant everywhere else. There we were, twenty miles from the scene of slaughter, looking on, not only ignorant of the truth, but entirely mistaken in our a.s.sumption that it was what we wished it to be.

The sight of what appeared to be a balloon (and we soon discovered that it was nothing else) excited tremendous interest. It ascended and descended repeatedly during the battle, apparently for the purpose of locating the enemy and directing the fire of Methuen's guns. We had been inundated with narratives of the extraordinary strength of the positions into which Boer ingenuity had converted the kopjes of Magersfontein. No further attention was paid to these tales, for lyddite was a terrible thing--that could move kopjes. It was but a matter of hours until the Column would be with us, unless, indeed, it paused for rest. The next day, we felt, would end the Siege of Kimberley, and bring again into vogue good dinners, b.u.t.tered bread, and--something to drink.

When firing ceased at length, the Beaconsfield Town Guard determined to make a noise on their own account. The easiest way to do it was to sound the alarm; and they did sound it, with right good will. They had observed a large party of the enemy clearing out of Alexandersfontein, and were possessed of an hallucination that it portended an attack on Beaconsfield. These wolf-cries, however, were venial faults; they denoted watchfulness; we were not disposed to take umbrage at small things; it was a day of victory. No suspicion of the truth flashed through our minds to upset our comfortable conclusions. Our ignorance was bliss; the folly of wisdom was to manifest itself all too soon.

The _Advertiser_ had news at last--authentic news and fresh; and forth from Stockdale Street was launched a three-penny ”Special,” to tell of the balloon ”we” had seen and of the cannon ”we” had heard. That was all. We put down our tickeys without a murmur. In the fulness of our hearts we said the paper had to live. The revenue from its advertising columns was a cypher, since there was so little to advertise about, and so little need to advertise anything that _was_ about. The ”ads.” had fallen off only in the sense that they were no longer paid for. They were still printed (to fill up s.p.a.ce); and very annoying reading they made. Before, there was _some_ truth in them; now, there was none. How we sighed for the times of extreme individualism.

In the afternoon a football match was played. The gate-money was handed over to the Widows' and Orphans' Fund. Our happy speculations on what happened at Magersfontein served a good purpose here in stimulating the generosity of the spectators. A team of our visitors (the Lancas.h.i.+re Regiment) lined up against the pick of the Citizen Soldiers. The game was well contested, but the superior discipline of the Colonel's lot told, and they won.

At break of day on Tuesday the Column's guns were at it again. This was disappointing, inasmuch as it led us to infer that some Boers were yet alive at Magersfontein. And our ardour was further damped by the De Beers directors who instead of formally dispersing until the next day, once more adjourned their meeting--_sine die_. What did it mean? A Special was shortly forthcoming and was bought up eagerly, while many eyes were being strained to catch a glimpse of Lord Methuen's legions in the distance. The Special gave us news of a fight, indeed; but not of _the_ fight; it was Modder River over again. In fine, we were sold again, for the Modder River fight was--if not quite ancient history--as remote from our thoughts as the ”famous victory” at Blenheim in ages past. Despatch riders had been coming and going, we knew all about the River battle, and after an interval of fifteen days an ambiguous ”slip”

was slipped upon a too confiding _clientele_! It was sharp practice; and its employment at a moment when suspense had thrown us off our guard was superb. We bristled with indignation, but the _coup_ (as such) was splendid. We, the victims, were not entirely blameless; we had had ample experience of the risk attached to speculation in Specials. It was ever thus. An ancient number of the _Cape Times_ would drop from the clouds, and for weeks the news it contained would be administered in homeopathic doses to the public at three pence per dose. It was good business.

”Slip” was the appropriate appellation bestowed upon the Special.

Sometimes two or three ”Slips” would be issued on the same day. One would come out early, after which a huge blackboard, intimating in chalked capitals that ”important news” was to appear in a later edition, would be carried round the town by two black boys. And though the news was never important, the enterprise was a success. To the smart sets the limited reading matter the ”half sheet of notepaper” contained was a positive recommendation; and at afternoon (Natal) teas there was many a ”Slip” between the cup and the lip.

Time pa.s.sed; and still the Column came not. We felt disgusted rather than distressed; we were yet confident of the Column's invincibility.

Various t.i.t-bits of secondary interest were served out to humour us, and a startling rumour was put in circulation--a rumour round which clung no element of justification to soften the wrath it aroused.