An elaborate system of signals has been arranged. A red flag will fly from Headquarters should the Boers be coming on, and an alarm will be rung in the centre of the town. The streets have been barricaded with carts, and all open places protected by traverses of a useful character. Mines have been placed within and without the town, and an improvised field telegraph or the telephone has been connected with every point which lies beyond the immediate precincts of the defences. Every possible precaution that human ingenuity can devise and the resources of the town supply for the protection of the place, is in order.
Thus did Mafeking prepare for the Boer bombardment, and upon the Monday following this took place; but it is perhaps no exaggeration to say that nothing so ludicrous in the history of modern warfare has been propagated as the gigantic joke which Commandant Snyman, who directed the fire of the artillery, played off against us that day. For many weeks we, along this frontier, had heard what the Boers proposed to do once war should be declared. These forecasts had indeed been sanguinary; the heads of the English people, had we believed in these rumours, were to lie upon the veldt like the sand upon the sea shore.
The bombardment as such was totally ineffective, and so curiously amateur, so wholly experimental, as to move one to astonishment rather than derision. It began at 9.15 a.m., and the first shell fell blind. The second and the third also pitched short, but once the bombardment had been initiated, the feelings of those who had dreaded such an event, more on account of their women and children than on account of themselves, were unperturbed. When the shells began to fall into the town it was found that they were of such poor quality as to be incapable of any explosive force whatever. Judging from their effect the area of damage was not three square feet.
Shortly after the first few shells had been dropped the Boers found the range, and from Signal Hill, their position to the east of the town, threw several shells at the hospital and monastery. Strange as it may seem our most grievous cause of complaint against the Boer plan of war is that they do not respect sufficiently our Red Cross flag. Commandant Snyman had given us no time in which to remove our women and children, and, as a consequence, we established somewhat hurriedly a laager, in which they were confined and which it was hoped would be beyond the fire of the Boer, since we afforded it the protection of the Red Cross flag. This, so far as the laager was concerned, luckily proved to be the case, since on the occasion that Commandant Cronje sent in to apologise for the firing upon the Red Cross by his younger roughs during the Five Mile Bank fight, Colonel Baden-Powell took the opportunity of pointing out to him the precise significance of this flag, and the exact whereabouts of the buildings which enjoined its protection. In the absence of direct evidence of the enemy's intention upon this day, in the repugnance with which one would charge them with wilful abuse of the Red Cross, it is good to believe that Colonel Baden-Powell's letter was not communicated to Commandant Snyman previous to this action, for from the moment that this officer opened the bombardment until his artillery ceased fire for the day, each individual missile was thrown directly across the hospital and monastery. It was unfortunate that these buildings should have been in the line of fire, and it was a fact greatly to be deplored that the hospital should be filled, at such a moment, with women and wounded, the former magnanimously devoting themselves to the work of looking after those who had been disabled in Saturday's engagement. It was perhaps unavoidable, with such a line of fire, that the shells should not drop upon the hospital and monastery. Fearing this as we did, the garrison was filled with consternation when, so abruptly that we had scarcely realised what had been the actual object of the nameless dread by which the camp was suddenly depressed, the inevitable happened and we knew that a shell had burst within the hospital itself. Had this shell been of the quality and explosive character that we had been led to expect, one entire side of the hospital would have been reduced to ruins; as it was, however, the area of destruction most remote from the point of penetration was not three feet in circumference. A little of the masonry was destroyed, a few boards of the floor ripped up, and that was all. Dust and dirt, however, covered everything.
Two more shells penetrated the same building in the course of the attack—the one burst in the principal waiting-room, the other played havoc with the children's dormitory. Fortunately no one was injured, and it was a happy omen for future shelling that throughout the whole of the first bombardment no human life was lost in Mafeking. There were no casualties, and three buildings, the hospital, the monastery, and Riesle's Hotel, alone were struck. The dead comprised one chicken. There were many narrow escapes. My horse was fastened to the hitching-post outside Riesle's Hotel at the very moment that a shell burst against the steps of the verandah, but this animal would seem to enjoy a happy immunity from shell fire, since at the Five Mile Bank engagement there was a shell which burst within three or four feet of him.
Our guns made no return whatever to the fire of the Boers, beyond a chance shot which exploded by accident. After this very ineffective and amusing bombardment had continued for some hours the enemy ceased firing, and from their position only 2,000 yards from the town, and to which they had moved from Signal Hill, where the attack had begun, the usual messenger, half herald, half spy, was despatched to our lines. It has become quite a feature of the Boer operations against Mafeking for them to enjoy at every few hours a cessation of hostilities under a flag of truce, and, I regret to say, that these constant messages in the middle of an action, from the Boer Commandant to Colonel Baden-Powell, are sent with an ulterior motive. The Boer Commandants would appear to lack that experience of the conditions of warfare which should enable them to perceive the folly and futility—if not the guilt—of such procedure as they have been following since operations against this town began. It was, perhaps, as much through our own ignorance of the character of the enemy whom we were fighting as anything, that they secured any profitable information by these tactics, since we had expected that they would observe the unwritten regulation which restricts the progress of a flag of truce to a point half-way between the lines of the two forces. Upon no occasion at this period in the investment did the Boers recognise this custom, but securing cover where they could they crept down to our lines under protection of the white flag. By these means they secured valuable intelligence.
The Boer emissary was allowed safe conduct into our lines, and was escorted by Captain Williams, of the British South Africa Police, who was in command of the armoured train, and Lieutenant the Honourable Hanbury-Tracy of Headquarters Staff, who had been sent out to meet him. The messenger was conducted to Colonel Baden-Powell, who received through this medium a second demand for unconditional surrender. Commandant Snyman presented his compliments to Colonel Baden-Powell, and desired to know if, to save further bloodshed, we would now surrender. Colonel Baden-Powell received this message with polite astonishment, and while not telling the deputy of Commandant Snyman that his shell fire had only spilt the blood of a fowl, and knocked small pieces out of three buildings, replied, that so far as we were concerned, we had not yet begun. While the Headquarters Staff were deliberating upon the reply to such a momentous message, the messenger was regaled with beer and bread and cheese. He was escorted back at 4.45 p.m., and for the time being shell fire ceased.
On Monday the armoured train took up a position in advance of the town, and in such a manner that it was completely sheltered from the Boer position. It so happened that the Boer messenger came directly upon this train, which was patiently waiting for the enemy's line of fire to be advanced a few hundred yards further, before opening its artillery. The little ruse which we had so carefully planned was thus forestalled, and to prevent further disclosures being made the herald was therewith blindfolded. It was a strange spectacle to see this Boer being brought through our lines with a somewhat soiled handkerchief across his eyes. His flag of truce comprised three handkerchiefs tied to a bamboo, and as he came forward it waved with a motion in which fright played as great a part as dignity.
The Boer Commandant had evidently determined to shell Mafeking from three positions, but force of circumstances, and the undesirability of throwing up earthworks under the telling fire which would have been poured into him from our own trenches, prevented him bringing his heavy artillery into position. He had stormed Mafeking from Signal Hill with a twelve-pound Krupp, but when he advanced into a range of 2,000 yards he fell back upon a seven-pounder, and a nine-pound high-velocity Krupp. These guns were quite unprotected by earthworks and could be easily seen from the town. Indeed it was the possibility of their being put out of action by our guns which instigated the Commandant to secure a cessation of hostilities by despatching his messenger upon some fatuous errand to Colonel Baden-Powell while he and his entire force busied themselves in erecting breastworks about his field pieces.
The Boer emissary arrived at 2.30 p.m., and no sooner had he been received by us than the Boers began to work with pick and shovel, continuing their labours throughout the conference. By the time that their herald had returned two emplacements had been prepared and their locality partially concealed by a quantity of small bushes and scrub with which they had been covered.