But they did get reliable news now and again, and that kept them up to concert pitch. The brave fellows knew that the world was watching their heroic efforts, and that the Empire had risen and was pouring out its best sons to help and rescue them. They heard what Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were doing. They knew that the home Government was now working with might and main to repair its former errors of undue trust and confidence. They would not be deserted, nor would England neglect her duty now. The iniquitous and false Boer would be crushed, even although it cost England her best and bravest. This braced them up and enabled them to endure all that they were called to endure.
They knew that the enemies of England—those wretched traitors, traducers, and fratricides—were repudiated by their countrymen as obnoxious vermin. They knew that the gold which Kruger and his hireling Leyds had scattered broadcast, had failed to influence the people. The people of England were not to be biased by paid demagogues. They demanded that right should be done, and the Government obeyed the universal voice. The defenders of Kimberley were holding this post for the Empire, and they did so bravely, now that the Empire appreciated their efforts. While a man was left, and an ounce of food remained, Cronje might bark his loudest, they would never cave in.
This was the kind of spirit which moved the whole camp. When food began to fall short and they had to buckle their belts tighter round their waists, they did so with a jest, for they knew that the end must be victory.
They heard the news about Ladysmith, and all about the British disasters. But they also heard that, instead of sixty thousand men being sent out to help them, England was packing off two hundred thousand of her best soldiers, and ready to send at the back of that six or eight hundred thousand, if wanted, to clear the board. That assurance braced them up. The Lion and his cubs were in earnest now, and the inflated rebels were doomed. The Boer had thrown off the mask too completely ever to be trusted with a rifle again. He must be disarmed and kept so until he was civilised. The master villains, Paul Kruger and his weak-minded catspaw, Steyn, would be arraigned for their crimes against civilisation and quashed. This Cronje, the vile and brutal murderer, would yet be tried for his atrocities, and punished as he deserved. Schreiner and his brother traitors would have to give account of their stewardship and be properly rewarded, and the land would be free for honest colonists to cultivate.
Not a man in this beleaguered garrison but rested assured that those Irish Nationalists, those paid Boer agents and home-bred renegades, as well as the treacherous Cape Afrikanders, would yet get the just reward of their atrocious treason; and this braced them up to endure half and quarter rations, and to stand to their guns while famine, fever, and shells thinned their ranks day after day. They trusted in their country to do her duty when the hour of retribution arrived, and to punish those dastards who used explosive bullets, fired on hospitals and the women’s quarters; who used the sacred white flag for murder, wantonly slaughtered the wounded and their benefactors in spite of the red cross flag; who ravenously destroyed and looted farms, and did in a hundred ways what savages would have been ashamed of. They trusted that all these dastardly actions would be sifted and punished, in individuals as well as in masses, therefore they kept up their spirits and held to their posts without a thought of surrender. Let England remember the lacerations and wounds of her brave and dauntless sons when the hour comes for dealing with this most unworthy and despicable foe.
They have fought well, but so do many of the most atrocious murderers, pirates, and bushrangers, when driven into a corner, yet all the same the pirates are hanged when caught. A rat, a snake, or a scorpion will also face up under such circumstances, yet these vermin are crushed all the same. Desperation and brute viciousness is not heroism, any more than tolerated treason is a token of nobility.
Ned Romer and his comrades did their part like brave men during this prolonged siege. It was a magnificent education to them as sons of the Empire.
Fortunately they escaped so far woundless, and also kept off the sick list; yet during those four and a half months they had plenty to do, and, like the rest of the defenders, had little time to rest.
And while they were holding their own they heard how gallant Baden-Powell was guarding little Mafeking, and how Sir George White was keeping the enemy at arm’s length in Ladysmith. Never a thought of surrender troubled any soul at either of those places. All the world was watching them, and they meant to come out right.
It did not trouble them too much that Sir Redvers Buller was stopped on the Tugela, or Lord Methuen at the Modder River. They knew what men and cavalry these generals had at their command, and how impossible the task was, before proper reinforcements came, so they were content to wait and trust.