The townspeople had assembled in concourse to welcome the warriors home. Cheer after cheer rent the air as they passed, intermingled now and then with a murmur of pity, suggested by the sight of a riderless horse. Scott-Turner was the recipient of a special salvo, which nearly unsaddled him again; and the other officers were bored to death bowing their acknowledgments along the route. Privates with bandaged eyes or arms were also singled out for vociferous greeting, only they passed the bowing, and were not a bit bored. The Mayor himself, smoking a cigar, came along in his own goods van! There was no mistaking his identity; it was the Mayor—the Mayor of the Diamond City in a wooden chariot! not indeed in his robes of State, but—in the flesh! A flaming Red Cross waved above the Mayoral van, and a long string of vehicles, adorned with like emblems, followed. It was to the credit of the merchants generally that they had voluntarily placed their horses and wagons at the disposal of the military. Had all the combatants been stricken hors-de-combat there were facilities on the spot for their immediate conveyance to hospital.
The prisoners, who followed in the wake of their conquerors, were the great objects of curiosity and interest. One or two spectators started groaning; but a nudge, or failing that, a kick sufficed to correct their bad taste. A weary, travel-stained group the captives looked—with their unkempt locks and unshaven faces. No need to throw mud at them. The universal feeling was rather one of sympathy, even of admiration, for brave men whom fortune had omitted to favour.
Chapter VII
Week ending 2nd December, 1899
Three and three make six weeks. We were not yet free—not quite. Our period was doubled. The wary seers who "told us so" had triumphed; and they exploited their intuition for what it was worth, or rather for a great deal more, since clearly it was not worth much. They had triumphed (by a short head, so to speak), or said they had. What matter. They were minor prophets; and the nearness of Methuen and his Column enabled us to bear the trumpet-blowing with equanimity and good humour. The monster head-lines of the Advertiser—delightful paper!—proclaimed it "the last week of the siege!" It was placarded on the walls. The newsboys shrieked it abroad. The man in the street confirmed it. The populace believed it. The grocer beamed, and the haberdasher made bold definitely to state the date on which a particular reel of cotton could be purchased. It even stimulated the hotel-keepers to discover hidden spirits. The last week of the siege! how comforting it sounded; and what potent influence it possessed to soothe temperaments unadaptable to siege life.
The funerals of the brave men who had fought their last fight on Saturday took place in the afternoon. A funeral is a mournful thing always; but here were six young men, cut down in the heyday of their lives, being conveyed to their last resting-place. Most of them had been esteemed citizens of the town in defence of which they died. It was this, the circumstances under which they fell, the feeling that it was for the preservation of the homes of the people they had given up their lives, that evoked so much sympathy and sorrow. Thousands of mourners attended to pay the fast tribute of respect to the dead. The various sections of the Town Guard in processional order followed the coffins to the cemetery.
Many things occurred in the course of the day to enhance our satisfaction with the prospect of emancipation. At eleven o'clock an alarm was sounded, and the services in the churches were in consequence cut short. The half of the Town Guard enjoying their day off had their relaxation cut short, too—unnecessarily, as it turned out. Fifty or sixty Boers were prowling about, a powerful glass enabled the zealous look-out to explain. It was a mere storm in a teacup, not by any means the first that had raged in that fragile utensil. This capped all past tempests, and made the men who had been off duty exceedingly angry, and the men who were on, exceedingly gay. Mafeking, however, was fighting on still; and many Boers had been killed in Natal. The piece-de-resistance was the last to come. It concerned our own Relief Column, whose progress the enemy had had the temerity to impede at Belmont. How their hardihood had been rewarded with "cold steel"; how they had quailed before it; how they had fled before the conquering Methuen: these and other details, in all their charming vagueness, were received with rapture. It was fine news; and wounded men in the hospital, about to die, changed their minds and lived when they heard it.
We had a visitor—an emissary from the Boers—on Sunday. And though he turned out to be a Scotchman!—so brimful of hope and good humour were we that the circumstance detracted little from the cordiality of his reception. He was a doctor, the doctor whose services had been commandeered by the practical Boer. Some of us felt disposed to doubt his nationality; but the gentleman talked Scotch—that is, English—dialectically and broad; and when he shook hands familiarly with a few local members of his profession, the sceptics were silenced. Show me your company, etc., did not apply. The main point, however, was, his business. What did he want? He wanted medicines, surgical instruments, and things—a request which occasioned much shoulder-shrugging apropos of the medico's "nerve." That he served the Boers in his professional capacity only, was evidenced by the candour with which he opened his heart when queried as to the fortunes of the family who had taken a loan of him. He admitted a loss of one hundred killed and wounded Boers in the recent fight. This was rather higher than our own estimate—and we were not given to minimise on the wrong side. It was wonderful. Whether the learned doctor exaggerated—but why should he (a Scot) in such a case?—unless indeed the canny one desired to please and make sure of his medicines. Anyhow he got his medicines (including a personal prescription, from his "ain country"), and with a bow of gratitude departed.
The Diamond Fields' Advertiser was quite readable on Monday. It contained news, and less of the fiction (culled from old magazines) with which it had been regaling us for weeks. On Monday we read of modern London, and of transports, fights, etc. (in the present war). We were engrossed in the news when the Boer guns began to play. Three shots were fired, and we had to admire the impudence of an enemy who acted as if the coming Column gave him no concern. The missiles hit nobody, although one was facetiously alleged to have winged a locust. These insects swarmed the land—it was difficult to avoid hitting them—and one was not missed. We got more shells in the afternoon, but they did no harm whatsoever.