“Things are going on as usual. Every one is heartily sick and tired of the siege. Colonel Plumer, with 1500 men, is only about thirty-five miles away, with provisions for us.... Every one here feels the want of more, better, and varied food. A friend of ours was very ill for ten days, and the only comforts the doctor could order were two tins of milk and some lunch biscuits! There is no margarine left in the town, and the Commissariat Department is calling in all the starch. The hospital is very full; and there is a good deal of malarial and typhoid fever.... Sometimes the bread is awful, black, and made from locally-crushed oats, with all the husks on, simply split in long pieces. We are all downright hungry, and cannot buy a bit of food, except on some special occasion. Last Sunday Weil’s store was allowed to sell certain articles of food, e.g. pea flour and margarine; former, 2s. 6d. a tin; latter, 3s. per lb. The crush outside the store was so great that women fainted, and some were waiting for hours, and then unable to get in.... The railings of the park and tennis-courts are used for firing, and we are authorised to use our fences for the same purpose. Our meat is good, but poor and tough. We almost entirely depend upon the natives looting enemy’s cattle, and sometimes we have horse-flesh, but that I cannot manage, so on those days I am hungrier than ever.... My husband is quarter-master-sergeant in charge of the rations—not a very enviable billet. The whole town is on rations. We are all under martial law, and Colonel Baden-Powell looks after us all, and we may be very thankful that the defence of Mafeking has been entrusted to such a capable man.”
The menu was not variegated. You took your choice between a species of porridge (made from the husks of oats fermented for some hours prior to boiling) and a noxious brown biscuit, or, as the Indians called it, “chupattie.” But it had none of the savouriness of the chupattie, and was described as a cross between a ship’s biscuit and a baked brick. It was certainly filling at the price, so filling, in fact, that those who devoured it suffered from what was styled “hippopotamus on the chest” for some hours afterwards.
March 27th was described as the hottest day in the siege, the mud walls of Mafeking being liberally dosed to the tune of 200 shells by Creusots and quick-firing Krupps. As many as 250 shells were said to have been fired into the town, while the 100-pounder was responsible for 70. Sergeant Abrams, of the Cape Police, an officer who had been in the thick of the whole siege, was caught by a high-velocity shell and had the misfortune to lose his foot. Some of the shells penetrated the bomb-proofs, and one or two persons were more or less injured. It was calculated that during the sixty-four days of the siege as many as 1300 shells from the 100-pound Creusot, independently of minor missiles, had descended in the midst of the valorous community. Some of the shells were sold as curios and fetched as much as five guineas apiece; rarer ones sold for ten or twelve. The losses of the garrison up to this date were: Killed and missing: 7 officers and 93 men, besides 53 native and other non-combatants. Wounded: 11 officers and 38 men, besides 114 native and other non-combatants.
The congratulations of the Lord Mayor of London on the relief now arrived, and all began to hope that “coming events cast their shadows before.” But cruel disappointment followed.
Heavy firing was reported from the north on the 31st, and there was tremendous excitement. One and all agreed that it was Colonel Plumer coming to the rescue. They hoped, they prayed, and when at last the sounds died away hope died with them. The next morning explained it. General Snyman sent in a letter under a flag of truce requesting Colonel Baden-Powell to send an ambulance for Colonel Plumer’s dead! A horrible description of the battlefield “strewn with corpses” followed, and caused deep concern to those who were the cause of the gallant enterprise which had cost so many lives. Fortunately only three bodies were found, but these had rifled pockets, while the boots of one had been removed. The action of removing boots from the dead savours of the barbaric, but it must be remembered that the Boers, and indeed some of our own men, were almost soleless. War brings about strange conditions and strange ethics. A trooper, one of the remnant of the Light Brigade, told a strange story of how on that “great occasion” he came on the corpse of a Russian officer magnificently booted, while he himself could barely hobble in his tatters. He could not resist the prize, and possessed himself of the much-needed apparel. He was in the act of going off in triumph when his conscience smote him; he returned, and taking off his own boots reverentially clothed the feet of the dead man! He appeased his qualms by arguing that exchange was not robbery!
COLONEL PLUMER’S OPERATIONS
Colonel Plumer lived in the hope of joining hands with Colonel Baden-Powell at Mafeking, and messages were successfully interchanged between the two officers. Life in the north was occupied mainly with skirmishes and the repairs of railway lines and culverts, which were needed along almost every mile of route. Between Gaberones and Crocodile Pools the engineers worked arduously, under the protection of an armoured train and a strong body of dismounted men. Very useful information was received of the Boers’ whereabouts from papers contained in a Boer mail-bag captured between Sequani and Sauerpoord. The Boers were found to be in force at Crocodile Pools, and to have in their possession two cannon and two machine-guns, and here it was evident they meant to harass any progressive movement of the British.
Map showing the Advance from the North and the South for the Relief of Mafeking.
The above sketch-plan of Mafeking shows the Boer trenches and the British lines of defence round the town, with the localities and dates of the principal fights which have taken place between the besiegers and besieged. Above and below the plan (though not, of course, upon the same scale) there is a map of the country between Kimberley and Tuli. The margin is divided into spaces of twenty-five miles, measuring from Mafeking north and south, and the advance of Plumer from the north and of Methuen from the south is shown step by step.