‘Is it an earthquake, or Johannesburg fighting in earnest at last?’ Steve asked himself. He jumped into the cab, and told the driver to drive his best. A cloud of smoke was now seen ascending the sky; and after a few minutes a party in a cab was hailed and asked for information, as they seemed to be coming from the direction of the smoke. The driver replied that he ‘expected some magazine had blown up, as a stone had fallen from the sky a few yards from his cab.’
On reaching town, Steve was informed that a tremendous explosion of dynamite had taken place at Vrededorp. Evidence of the severity of the explosion was not wanting, as everywhere smashed windows were seen, and on nearing the scene of the explosion, the signs of damage done increased at every pace. All along the road our hero’s heart bled to see the number of wounded being conveyed to the hospital. But, on approaching the scene of the catastrophe itself, Steve felt sick and faint at the signs of death about him. He got out of the cab, and told the driver to put the cab at the service of the wounded, and look to him for payment when done. He himself assisted to place two of the wounded on his cab, and forgetting his natural repulsion at the sight of human blood and gaping wounds, set to work assisting in the labour of rescue.
‘My God! it is too horrible,’ he murmured, as he saw a severed head lying alone and ghastly here, with · set and staring eyes. It reminded him of his thoughts, in times past, of what the day of doom must be like. It seemed to him, as he found a human arm here, a leg, a hand, a head, or some portion of a body, there, that these portions of human bodies were waiting to be re-united to their other parts. He ran about, as if in a fever, and as if he would avoid seeing these terrible emblems of death lying about. Spade in hand, he would now assist in following a limb protruding from the mass of debris, lying on the brink of the vast hole that had been made by the explosion, after which task had been done, he would rush down to the bottom of the hole itself, and there again work and dig till the sweat poured from his face. After he could find no more rescue work here to be done, (so many others being busy in the same task that there was hardly room for all), he rushed towards the many fallen houses, fallen upon the inmates, where there was work enough for all. Oh, what a sight! A sight, once seen, never to be forgotten, if you live for a thousand years! Here is lying a dead mother, clasping her dead child to her cold breast. Here are a mother and three children, all found dead in one room. Here is a father, mad because of his grief, holding his dead child in his arms while moaning over his dead wife—dead, all dead—death here, death there, DEATH everywhere! How the men worked! Affliction makes us all of a kin. Not one skulked. Everyone was doing his best to rescue the wounded from the wrecks of once happy homes. No thought of politics here; no racial distinctions thought of. Here, in this great affliction all were of one race—the human race. Dutch and English work together like brothers. An Englishman rescues and handles a child of Dutch parents as tenderly as if it were his own. A Dutchman pulls out of the ruins a ‘rooinek,’ and supports his head as tenderly as if it was his own father, while he holds the restoring cup to his lips. When God wishes our hearts to be softened towards each other, he sends us affliction.
While the work of rescue is still going on, others, moved with pity at the sight of homeless and friendless ones not killed or wounded, begin to subscribe of their plenty, so that these may be provided for—a movement that was responded to most liberally from all South Africa, so that, at least, those who were left behind were provided for. Steve worked hard as long as he could, but at midnight he gave place to fresh ones who came up, as he was now thoroughly knocked up, and went to his hotel to get a few hours rest.
CHAPTER XXV
THERE IS MERCY, EVEN AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR, IF YE REPENT
Early next morning, at five o’clock, Steve was again at the scene of disaster. Gangs of men were still busy looking for dead and wounded.
Steve was told that the hospital was full to overflowing, and that the Wanderers’ Hall had also been formed into a temporary hospital, and was also nearly full of wounded. As Steve was walking from one ruin to another, seeking for likely places where aid may be required, he came to a mass of ruins. As he stood, looking thoughtfully and sadly at a home, only one day before tenanted by, perhaps, a happy family, now lying in a heap of debris, its inmates no one knows where—perhaps sick and wounded to death—perhaps dead! he heard a moan of despair.
‘Who is there?’
Only another mournful moan for a reply.