2nd, Monday. Flags of truce from the enemy reporting the death of Captain McLaren. Regret and sympathy barely express my own feelings, and how many of us are there scattered about the world, who when they see the next polo tournament, will think again of the best of players, the nicest of fellows, whom Hurlingham and the scenes of his many triumphs will see no more.
There seems a chance of another fight this afternoon. The Boers are very restless and galloping about in all directions. I do not suppose they mean to attack us, and, as far as I can make out, are nervous and seem to expect pressure from the east.
Some men were interviewed yesterday who had returned from Natal. They reported the death of Joubert and were far less confident than they have shown themselves heretofore.
3rd, Tuesday. I am heartily glad to say that Captain McLaren is not dead, although severely wounded and a prisoner in the Boers' hands.
A despatch was received from Colonel Plumer this morning stating that he had had an engagement north of the town and that his losses were Captain Crewe (who was buried here this morning), Lieutenant Milligan, killed; Colonel Plumer, Major Weston Jarvis, and Captain Rolt, slightly wounded; non-commissioned Officers and men killed, seven; wounded, twenty-six; missing, eleven. Three missing are known to be dead and the others are wounded in the Boers' hands. Captain McLaren has written from the Boer camp, where he is, we are all glad to hear, going on well and being very well treated by the Boers.
Yesterday afternoon we had a successful brush with the enemy to north-west, no casualties on our side. Their ambulances were seen very busy. To-day everything is so far quiet.
4th. Early this morning Lieutenant F. Smitheman, Rhodesian Regiment, Colonel Plumer's intelligence officer, arrived through the Boer lines. I met him as he was going to change. He said, "How do you do? I am ---- to be in." I said, "How are you? I am very glad to see you, but I should be ---- glad to be out." However, there is no satisfying everybody. The country was infested by Boers and he had walked twenty-two miles that night accompanied by two natives. He is as a scout facile princeps, and thus eluded the hostile cordon successfully, though he had one anxious moment when he fell into the trench connecting Fort Ayr and the refugee laager, heard native voices, and was for some time under the impression it was the Boer trench. He was second in command of Colonel Plumer's scouts in 1896, and afterwards disappeared into Central Africa for two years, going from Chinde to Blantyre, to Lake Nyassa, then by Lake Bangueolo to the source of the Congo, thence due south through the Mashakalumbwe country to Victoria Falls, and through which country he was the first white man to pass, and from the falls to Bulawayo, where he arrived in December, 1898. Though his journeys then may have been long, arduous, and dangerous, they can scarcely have been more exciting than the short twenty-two miles he walked last night.
A quiet day. Flags of truce pass daily informing us of the condition of the wounded.
5th, Thursday. This morning Smitheman went to the brickfields with the Colonel and was shot at a bit. We all told him that we were afraid we shouldn't be able to find him any entertainment as the Boers are very quiet just now, and he said we needn't trouble. However, as the morning wore on the enemy's sixteen-pounder commenced bombarding us from Game Tree and Jackal Tree and kept on the whole morning, apparently directed by a deserter, Private Hay, Protectorate Regiment, who selected his late fort and the headquarters of the Protectorate Regiment, as his main target. I shouldn't care to be Private Hay after the war as there is £50 on his head, dead or alive, and the Boers are hard up. The afternoon was pretty quiet, and the Boers have now retired all round to extreme musketry range of all the town. They livened up in the evening though, and fired a good deal, landing many bullets in the square.
6th, Friday. The morning began very quietly, and we were afraid that Smitheman would not get his introduction to "Creaky." However, in the afternoon she began, and he had a full opportunity of learning the meaning of the various sounds of the bell, the joys of the rush to the "dug-out," and the philosophy with which you can see your friends in the distance shelled, when she diverted a certain portion of her fire on Cannon Kopje.