MAFEKING, November
Poor Mafeking! The inevitable hung like a ghost over everything—bodiless, formless, but always there at the elbows of the gallant band that so long had held out against the foe. He was now coming closer—closer, continuing to sap and approach by parallels, till before long not only shells but rifle-fire would render streets impassable, shelters useless, and fortified positions dangerous. Colonel Baden-Powell’s brilliant wits were hard pressed to keep the enemy from carrying the town by storm, and all who valued their lives lived underground, burrowing like rabbits, or in bomb-proof shelters, from which occasionally they were routed, not by fire but by water.
Still the word surrender was unspelt. None dared breathe it aloud. A battery of seven field-guns blazing their hot fire and doing their fell work made no effect—the besieged remained firm. Mauser bullets whizzed past their ears; shells long as coal-scuttles and nearly as thick crashed into buildings, now into the hospital, now the convent, or sometimes into the women’s laager, leaving not seldom a track of mourning and blood; but the Boer could not plume himself on victory. Not so far off his white tents reflected the sunlight, and closer still the grim music of his rifles was eternally to be heard; but inside the little town were men who were developing from mere men of commerce into toughened warriors, and assisting Colonel Baden-Powell and his diminutive force to maintain the majesty of Great Britain, with a chivalry that might have done honour to the knights of old.
Towards the middle of the month the garrison was much cheered by the arrival on the scene of a plucky American journalist, who had ridden from the Cape straight through the Boer lines, and who came with all the buoyancy of the outer world to delight the ears of the British with tales of Lord Methuen’s advance. Other news now and then filtered in, and this the Colonel, either viva voce or by means of his typewriter, promptly shared with the whole interested community.
Facsimile of Writing in Album by Col. Baden-Powell
To make it evident that Mafeking was determined to keep lively and aggressive in spite of intermittent bombardment, several more gallant sorties were made, and on each occasion the little place came off with flying colours. Commander Cronje, disgusted, finally took himself off with some twenty waggons to Riceters (Transvaal), leaving his guns with the remaining commandoes and relegating to them the task of reducing the truculent town to submission.
Ruses, which are as the breath of his nostrils to the Boer in warfare, continued to be tried on Colonel Baden-Powell, who may be said to have almost enjoyed new chances to whet his wits and showed himself the last person to be caught napping. Indeed, some one at the time remarked that if they wanted to take him in they would have to get up very early in the morning and stay awake all night into the bargain! The latest Boer device was to make a show of going away and leaving a big gun apparently in a state of being dismantled. This of course was what in vulgar phrase might be called a “draw” for the besieged. But the Colonel was not to be drawn; his smart scouts continually found the enemy hidden in force, and thereupon put every one on their guard. Mafeking, in fact, “sat tight” and—winked!