Baden-Powell is a great actor; he never smiled as he replied:
“Tell the Commandant, with my compliments, that we have not yet begun.”
But a few days later the Boers were seen to be very active on the veldt about three miles from the town, and the rumour spread that they had sent to Pretoria for siege guns. The townsfolk stood in groups and discussed the new peril.
About noon next day the red flag flew from head-quarters. Presently a great cloud of smoke rose on the skyline; then came a rush of air, a roar as of some great bird flying, a terrific concussion, and then flying fragments of steel buried themselves in distant buildings, creating a sense of terror throughout the town.
“Mafeking is doomed!” was the general cry that afternoon; those alone who had dug themselves deep pits were fairly comfortable in their minds. The second shot of the big Creusot gun wrecked the rear of the Mafeking Hotel, and the force of the explosion hurled the war correspondent of the Chronicle upon a pile of wood. Next day more than 200 shells were thrown into Mafeking, which was saved by its mud walls; where bricks would have been shattered and shaken, these walls only threw out a cloud of dust.
As the Boers began to construct trenches round the city, Captain Fitzclarence was ordered to make a midnight sortie. Shortly after eleven o’clock the little party started on their perilous expedition; they crept on over the veldt in extended order, noiseless as possible, nearer and nearer to the Boer entrenchments. Those who watched them felt the weirdness of the scene—the deep silence, the mysterious noises of the veldt, the shadows caused by the bush. Now they were within a few yards; as they fixed bayonets they rushed forward with a cheer. Then figures showed in the Boer position; shots rang out, horses neighed and stampeded in fright. The Boers, taken by surprise, were unsteady and panic-struck; not many in the first trenches resisted long and stubbornly. Captain Fitzclarence, a splendid swordsman, laid four Boers who faced him on the ground; his men pursued with the bayonet.
Botha said next day that they thought a thousand men had been hurled against them, and the Boers in the other trenches fired as fast as they could at anything they could see or not see, many of the bullets going as far as the town.
This useless firing went on for a long time. When the attacking party arrived at the town again, they found they had lost only six men, eleven wounded, and two taken prisoners. Next day the Boers fired no gun until evening, and had plenty to do in collecting their wounded.
Several such night attacks were made in order to check the Boers’ advance. After six weeks of siege, Colonel Baden-Powell said in a published order: “Provisions are not yet scarce, danger is purely incidental, and everything in the garden is lovely.” He was always trying to cheer up his little garrison with humorous speeches and funny doings, with concerts and dances and theatrical entertainments. It was the knowledge of what he had done to keep up the spirits of his men and the spirits of Englishmen at home which caused such a frenzy of delight when Mafeking was finally relieved. What seemed a madness of joy was a sure instinct in the nation. It is true that Mafeking, through the foresight of Julius Weil, the contractor, possessed immense stocks of food; but as to its defences, dummy camps and dummy earthworks built to affright the Boers would not have availed unless the loyalty and bravery of the colonists had been equal to the severest strain. There was a wild desire to spike “Big Ben,” but the Creusot was hedged round by barbed wire, guarded by mines, and flanked by Nordenfeldt guns. It seemed wearisome work, week after week, to find the Boers standing away four or five miles, while from their places of safety they launched their shells. Sometimes in the night Baden-Powell would go forth alone, and creep or stand and examine and ferret out the plans of the enemy. Often, as he returned, he would startle some dozing sentry, even as the great Napoleon, who once found a sentry asleep, and shouldered his musket until the fellow awoke with a start. “I will not tell, but don’t do it again!”
Seven weary weeks have passed, and Mafeking still endures the straits of a siege and the terrors of a bombardment. The Boers have summoned to their aid the finest guns from their arsenal in Pretoria to breach and pound the earthworks; they pour shot and shell into the little town: but everybody is living below ground now.