Well, we were besieged; and the great Hall was adapted to very different uses. It was made headquarters. Within its walls the Town Guard were formally "sworn in," and supplied with hats, rifles, bandoliers, and ammunition. Hundreds of distressed refugees congregated there, for one of the Offices of the building had been transformed into a benevolent grocery shop, presided over by benevolent ladies. There also did mass some thousands of natives to gather their picks and shovels and pay. The Town Hall was the pivot round which revolved all sorts and conditions of men. Overrun inside and outside by roadmakers, citizen soldiers, and municipal officers (whose military dignity had raised their souls above scavenging), it was bad enough. But when the rich and poor of all classes and sexes were forced to join in the scramble for a bit to eat, it was worse. Until the "permit" system had come into vogue, money could buy much (of what was going); but the "permit" system lowered mammon to his rightful level. Money for the moment had lost its value; a "permit" was all-important—even Croesus himself would have starved without one. To procure these useful scrips all sorts of formalities had to be entered into, and the amount of time lost in waiting to prove one's right to live was provocative of many an oath, at the expense of the British army. Kafirs, coolies, Europeans of all nations, the wealthy the poor, and the lowly—all struggled to procure the precious "permit," as if they were at all hazards determined to gain one week's respite before finally succumbing to hunger's pangs. It must be owned that the work was carried on more smoothly when the black sheep were separated from the white, and when different days were assigned for attending to the residents of each of the respective wards into which the town was divided. The incompetence of the military in civil affairs added to the grievances of the people; complaint against the administration of the "Law" was as loud as the clamour against the "Law" itself. The bother entailed in the procuring of authority to purchase food, and in the purchase of it, was extreme. The food was not worth it; but life is precious (or was then), and one had in a very literal sense to live. A man had sometimes to stand from six to eight o'clock in the morning to buy his paltry bit of offal, hoof, or fat, as the case might be, and after he had rested on his feet for two hours his turn would come to draw his miserable allowance—if somebody else had not drawn it for him. Such accidents happened often enough to make a good many foreswear meat altogether. Usually, however, the unfortunate would be consoled with a "precedence ticket"—for next day! so that he could live on the certainty of a succulent morrow. From ten o'clock to four might be passed in waiting for one's grocery ticket; and, finally, from four to six could be whiled away at the crowded store in a frantic effort to catch the State assistant's eye. Oh, it was a happy epoch in our lives—an epoch during which vows were registered against being "let in" for such happiness again, or against living it through while a 'bare bodkin' was left unconfiscated.
It was the last day of the year, with nothing to elate us but the coming of Bobs. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick; ours were so ill that but for Bobs they must have ceased to beat. It was disconcerting to learn that Warren was in Natal, for it had been stated that Methuen was merely waiting Sir Charles to join him ere again attempting to fight his way to Kimberley.
New Year's Day! New Year's Day, indeed! Our Scotchmen sighed. Black tea for breakfast on New Year's Day was too much for them, and not a few of them (and others) felt constrained to take kopje dew instead. They drank brandy—so labelled in the tavern, but more widely notorious as "lyddite" in the town. Brandy had crimes committed in its name, and lyddite was a happy and appropriate appellation. Even vinegar could not counteract the effects of lyddite (i.e. bottled lyddite). As for the materials used in the manufacture of this explosive, well—necessity is the mother of invention; and the invention was well protected. It was only noted that methylated spirits and certain chemicals were scarce; and a suspicion prevailed that these were lyddite ingredients—a suspicion which afterwards proved to be well-founded when publicans were prosecuted for using them as such. One of the peculiarly lamentable features of the Siege was a certain tendency on the part of men, who drank little or nothing in normal times, to dissipate in desperation on this unique brand of brandy.
It was dry bread with many on New Year's Day. Even syrup was extinct. Nothing remained, to be taken or left (they were generally left), but a few jars of treacle. Dripping graced the table, but nobody touched it; it was too ghastly pale for a substitute, too unctuous for anything. The poor Native's breakfast was of "mealie-pap" exclusively; and from a hygienic standpoint he was perhaps better off than any of us.
Many things occurred to make the day interesting, or say, rather, out of the common; but the palm was easily carried off by the Colonel's "gift." I have had occasion to allude to the parsimonious action of the military in curtailing the allowances paid to natives for captured cattle and thereby paralysing the incentive that usually induces humanity (black or white) to face danger. This untimely experiment in economics had discouraged the Natives and practically sent them out on strike. There were no cattle coming in, and so the Colonel thought it would be a good thing to reduce our meat ration from half a pound to a quarter, and that of little boys and girls with capacious stomachs to two ounces! I must leave to the imagination of the reader the effect of this proceeding on the part of the man who made and administered Martial Law. The promulgation of the half-pound regulation had been resented as an injustice; but now the "Military Situation" demanded a still more drastic fast. The Military regime became more and more unpopular; it was declaimed against with finer gusto and eloquence. The new enactment was too much even for the "Law's" apologists; it alienated their sympathies, and afforded them excuse and opportunity to associate themselves at last with the rightful indignation of their fellow-citizens. As for Kekewich, we—or as many of us as might survive his snacks—determined that he should be made explain himself to the Queen. It was a glad New Year altogether, with every probability of its gladness continuing "all the year round."
As if he had got wind of the Colonel's coup, and looked on it as a menace to the success of his own starvation policy, the Boer (on Tuesday) by way of expediting things opened fire on the cattle at Kenilworth. A supreme effort was made to wipe them out. The effort was futile; the cows chewed the cud under fire with inimitable nonchalance, while the goats, our whiskered pandoors, with fine satire sagaciously cocked their horns. Not that we cared. The non-success of the bombardment was if anything disappointing (I say it advisedly). What substantial difference was there between four ounces of ox's "neck" and nothing at all. None to speak of. Besides, we suspected the law-givers, who doubtless deemed themselves, like royalty, above the "Law." Did not the Colonel represent the Queen? Nay, more; could he not exclaim with the great Imari in the play, "It is the 'Law,' I made it so." In short we had a notion that the Colonel and his staff did not weigh their own rations. So that if the Boers had succeeded in slaughtering the cattle there would have been satisfaction in the thought that the military had had to suffer with the rest and been served right indeed. Eggs were too expensive, to be thought of; two shillings each (egg) was their market value in the New Year. They were fresh of course, beyond yea or nay they were fresh (since none could be imported); and to be sure, absolutely sure, of that was delightful—to millionaires and roost-keepers. The exactions of the local egglers formed the subject of much adverse criticism, but they excused their medicinal charges on the plea that they had nothing save eggs to sell.
Soon after the issue of the new four ounce edict a learned doctor delivered a public lecture and eloquently assured us that we ate too much meat! He urged us to eat less of it, for our health's sake. Now, the doctors of the Diamond City were hard worked during the Siege; so much so that they were still allowed (by special arrangement) the half-pound ration. This was right and proper. But there was none the less a piquant irony in the principles of a propagandist who was eating twice as much beef as anyone else and could stand up to utter precepts so strikingly at variance with his practice! The good doctor no doubt knew that new-laid missiles were too costly, and too fresh, to be thrown away; but he deserved them; the audience did not say so; but their eyes blazed kindly.
On Wednesday sports were held at Beaconsfield to cheer up the children of the township. Sweets, ginger-beer, and tea (neat) were served out, and were relished by the little ones who were too young to be particular. It may be said that cricket, football, and smoking concerts went on as usual, though how the players and the comic songsters managed to spare wind (on the diet) for such strenuous recreation is a mystery. Football on four ounces of fat was a strain. No doubt our open air life did some of us a world of good, and in many instances it was not easy to recognise in a bronzed civilian soldier the erstwhile sallow clerk or shop-assistant.
It was at this stage of our travail that the Basuto Chief (Lerothodi) followed up the fashion of the day by launching a proclamation of his own which commanded all his people to return at once to Basutoland. Now, we had shut up with us in Kimberley some thousands of this worthy tribe. They received their Chief's command and set about preparing for instant departure, with the Colonel's blessing. We white folk were not at all sure that the Boers would be so gracious with their blessing. The process of starving us into submission was in full swing (and succeeding, alas! but too well). It was thus obvious that a reduction so substantial in the gross total of stomachs to be catered for would not tend to starve us the sooner. But the enemy did not deem it politic to attempt the task of driving Basutos and Britons to the sea together. The sympathies of the powerful Basuto chief were not on their side, and it would have been unwise to have risked offending him. So it was that the natives were permitted to pass unmolested to the kraals of their childhood. The enemy did not like it—any more than did King John when he signed the Great Charter—but it had to be.
In the meantime some news had come in to which the Colonel was pleased to give publicity. It was astonishing all the trifling tit-bits we did hear; and they occasionally excited interest—until discovered to be of home manufacture—the distinctive work of local genius. On this occasion, however, the tit-bit was "Official," and to the effect that the rebels at Douglas had been routed by the Canadian volunteers. This was gratifying; we blamed the rebels for our own beleagured state, and the moral lesson of the rout at Douglas might hasten the discomfiture of the gentlemen who surrounded us. I have yet to learn that it did in any shape or form.