It was triumphantly proclaimed in the afternoon that our patrols had brought in a host of Republican cattle; and when almost simultaneously with this announcement two proclamations were issued from Lennox Street, it was more than hoped, it was assumed, that the meat ordinance was to be relaxed. But it was not so. The first of these monuments to circumlocution had a final rap at the canteen. There were a few bars and canteens outside the barriers of the town; the Colonel said they should be closed, and closed they were—the proprietors, strange to say, assenting with a will. This alacrity was not consistent with their earlier diatribes against military despotism; but the fact was that since "lyddite" had been found out the experts were chary of making it, and the public still more chary of drinking it. There was some risk in selling it, too, so—clear the course for the "Law."
The second proclamation was all of wax and tallow. It commanded that all lights must in future be extinguished at half-past nine. We were thus considerately given half an hour to undress and lie reading books in bed after having been turned away from a perusal of the stars. We might have liked a little time for supper—but what am I saying!—there were no suppers; at least nobody was expected to commit a capital offence. But such miscreants existed, and kept their heads. It must in fairness be explained that they were for the most part possessors of obstinate hens that would not lay eggs. Eggs were firm at twenty-five shillings a dozen, and the hen that remained so contemptuous of mammon, so unredeemed by cupidity, so unmoved by the "golden" opportunity, most certainly deserved death. Therefore it was that an odd tough member of the feathered tribe was now and then discussed in secret. There was little conviviality about these gatherings assembled in back rooms where the light could burn with impunity. The unsuspecting night-patrol would pass blindly by, oblivious of the illegally illuminated junket within.
But indeed it must be confessed that few people took seriously the wax and tallow proclamation. The boarding-house keepers, of course, championed it and its author's wisdom (for reasons)—with a zeal that contrasted strangely with their condemnation of grander enactments. Landladies apart, however, the populace pooh-poohed the Gilbertian decree. Some regarded it as a mere precaution against a surprise visit from the Boers. But this was wrong, for the proclamation permitted the use of electric and acetylene lights at all hours. It was purely an economic question with the Colonel. Cynics opined that we should later on be offered the tallow to eat; and that the prohibition of the use of starch in our linen would be the precursor of some stiff emergency rations. The public, I say, disregarded the candle law, and the night patrol was kept busy dotting down in the light of the moon the numbers of a thousand houses. Unfortunately for the ends of Justice (!) the transgressors were so outrageously numerous that the heavy undertaking of arraigning half the city was not thought feasible. Only a few particularly refulgent "criminals" were hauled up and fined. Where sickness darkened a house the "Law" allowed a candle to light it, the whole night, if necessary, and invalids were accordingly as thick as leaves in Vallombrosa! An epidemic of all the ills that flesh is heir to raged in the land. Hypochondriacs moaned with their tongues in their cheeks in the presence of the prying night-patrol. Fevers flourished; multitudes were prostrated by influenza; the pleura played the devil with innumerable lungs. Anybody who was not a malingerer was voted a fool, an altruist. A magistrate, commenting on the great plague and the manner in which the majesty of the "Law" (the majesty of Martial Law!) was being outraged, averred that from his own doorstep every night at eleven o'clock he gazed at hundreds of illuminated houses. It was true; and we used to wonder which his worship was—an invalid, an altruist, or an owl!
We held a position at Otto's Kopje from which our men occasionally made things unpleasant for the Kamfers Dam Laager. The Boers, naturally, did not like this, and they in turn sometimes harassed the defenders of the kopje. But Kamfers Dam was shortly to be made quake, for it had just leaked out that a gigantic gun was in course of construction at the De Beers workshops; that men who knew their business were sweating at it day and night. Opinions were much divided as to the probable utility of this instrument. Some were disposed to pity the poor Boers when it was ready for action, while others were not less inclined to lament the fate of the poor Briton who would sit behind it, to get blown to pieces by a botched piece of mechanism. The withering criticisms passed on this prospective product of De Beers were anything but re-assuring. It was useless to try to impress on the morbid critic that there were skilled Woolwich men engaged in the manufacture of the gun. The argument would be crushed by that expressive figure, "rats!" The scorn with which these rodents were slung by the tail in the face of anyone who believed in "Long Cecil" (the gun had been so named out of compliment to Mr. Rhodes) was conclusive. Where was the necessary material to come from? Oh, De Beers had the material, the optimist would reply. But optimists, once so ubiquitous, were now as rare as radium. Our prophets had for their reputations' sake altered their tactics. Experience had taught them that the roseate view of things was the least likely to be sound, and they now revelled in predictions of an otto—not of roses. They prepared us, with a vengeance, for the worst. "To-morrow" was ever to be a day of tragic enormity for Kimberley. The local Armageddon was to begin (daily) at day-break; the enemy's guns were always being augmented; the town was to be razed to the ground, and, unless surrender was prompt, all its inhabitants with it. Thus did a spirit of despondency continue to depress the people and the prospect of emancipation grow dimmer and dimmer.
Besides the prophets of evil there was a set of cynics who sneered at all things, the incapacity of the Town Guard, its Officers, etc. For a long time the favourite boast of these gentlemen was that they had refused commissions in the Town Guard. It was true; and it is worth recalling why. At the beginning of the Siege little coteries were formed, "rings" were established, private meetings held—at which gatherings it was settled who was to be Captain of this Section, who Lieutenant of that, and so forth. All these matters were amicably fixed up, to the satisfaction of all concerned—including the vintner. It was assumed that the scale of pay would, as in the Regular Army, be in accordance with rank. The consideration was of course a minor one; but still the disgust of the coteries was profound when it was announced that the Imperial allowances to Town Guards were to be uniform; that a Captain was to receive for his services no more and no less than a Private. It was a disconcerting sequel to some skilful wire-pulling, and the martial ardour of the wire-pullers dropped in a trice to zero. Their dignity demanded their resignations, and their dignity's ruling was bowed to. These injured people would not be led into action by a raw volunteer; and they confided to every ear that would hear that the citizen soldiers could be trusted in a crisis—to shoot each other! But imagine the discomfiture of these veterans when at a later stage an army order, retrospective in its operation, was issued which cancelled the original monetary conditions of service for Officers and non-commissioned Officers, and increased the rates of pay to which their respective ranks entitled them. This order was only less effective than a bombshell in crushing a dignity already injured; and the gusto with which the Colonel and the Civil Commissioner were relegated to Connaught was excusable.
A good deal of rumbling was heard on Friday; it might have been thunder, or perchance artillery. Some said it was nature; others that it was guns' work. But nobody seemed to think that it mattered a great deal. We had grown tired of noise, nothing but noise. The whistle of the armoured train, which kept patrolling the line (the bit that was left of it) was more interesting, sometimes an innocent soul would allow his fancy to beguile him into hoping that the whistle portended the approach of a Cape Town train, with food and mail-bags, and he would march off to the station on desperate speculation to meet it.
In pursuance of an idea which had long occupied his thoughts the Colonel despatched a mounted force to cross the border into Free State territory—at which we could look across with the naked eye. What good purpose the visit was to serve was not obvious; but it was attributed to a desire on the Colonel's part to win the distinction of being the first to invade the enemy's territory. At any rate, the distinction was won. The men had not far to travel; and they did not go far when they crossed over, for the Oliphantsfontein camp blocked the way. The Boers were awake, but the audacity of the raid would appear to have deprived them for the moment of their visual senses. The Light Horse drew quite close ere the propriety of halting was suggested to them. The suggestion was naturally expected to issue in the first instance from the cannon's mouth; but the guns said nothing, and their silence emboldened our fellows to persist in their breach of etiquette until they made a startling discovery, namely, that the guns had been removed. This unexpected slice of luck so inspired the invaders that they advanced rapidly and drove out the enemy, whose resistance was feeble. A general inspection followed; the pantries and cupboards of the houses around were the objects of a special scrutiny, but not a bone, not an egg, not a crust was found! In one house a Boer lance with a white rag for pennon was picked up. This curio was carried back to town, and ultimately became the property of an enterprising curiosity shop-keeper, who cut artistic bullet holes in the pennon with his scissors—thereby adding largely to its curiousness. The bullets that made the holes were also a good line, and "sold" well (in fact, everybody). Nothing else occurred to make Friday noteworthy.
Saturday completed the round dozen weeks of siege life. How many more were to follow? Alas! our seers were discredited. They were silent; but hollow though time had branded their vaticinations the silence of the seers was not exactly golden. The prevailing pessimism was heart-breaking. At a critical stage, when a cheerful optimism was almost essential to the preservation of one's mental balance, we were tactlessly stuffed with the "lone lorn" lamentations of a Mrs. Gummidge. But Roberts was coming, and he was a "great" soldier—far greater than Wellington, or even Napoleon (a mere Corsican!) We hungered for news of his plans. Roberts, we took it, was not the man to sanction the alleged intentions of his subordinates—the callous mediocrities who would let Kimberley work out its own salvation. It was reported at this time—for the better security of our peace of mind—that a grand march was to be made on Bloemfontein, while Kimberley was to live on air and fight away.
In the afternoon a balloon appeared in the air. It attracted much attention, and set everybody speculating on what its business in the air precisely was. Our nautical experts (who had been at sea for three weeks anyhow) opined that it was "steering" for the Diamond Fields. It must have collided with a "Castle," for it never came into port.
Balloons, indeed, were seen very often, and a great deal of time was devoted to the study of their movements. In the silence of the night a practical joker would rush out with a field-glass in his hand and shout "balloon!" at the top of his voice. The desired effect—of bringing the whole street out of bed to see the balloon—was easily produced. The star-gazers would thus spend an hour or so minutely examining all the stars in the firmament in their endeavours to select the one that most resembled a balloon. This was not easily done—the stars being much alike to the stupid naked eye—but they would near the point of agreement on the question; and then the confounded night-patrol would come along with his gun, and the observers would have to rush for the cover of their blankets. When it was thought that the patrol had passed two thousand yards there would be a general sneak back to begin over again the search for the needle in the great haggard of the heavens. Everybody had his or her own particular planet to minimise. The brightest planets were naturally the more general choice, albeit distance might in the circumstances be expected to lend a dimness to the view. Venus was essentially a very nice balloon; numbers swore by Jupiter; Mercury had a heavy following. Taurus was indeed a "Bull"; and Mars! talk of Mars being inhabited; we identified its inhabitants as being necessarily British. There were thirteen signs in the Zodiac. Anybody who called a star a star was called an ass. "That's no star," your exasperated kinsman would retort, "do you take me for a blind fool." And it only required a fixed, steady gaze of ten minutes, without winking, to convince the most sceptical that it was indeed "no star"; that it did "move"; that it was "too large" for a star; that it was absurd to consider it not a balloon. The Milky Way (as per diverse opinions) was one vast creamery of balloons, undiluted by the "poetry of heaven!" In fine, among all the things that twinkled there were only some half dozen that hushed the voice of controversy. It was certain there remained at least five luminaries, five unmistakable stars, to wit, the Southern Cross. Paul Kruger once expressed astonishment that the British had not annexed the moon, if it were inhabited. Well, the moon, though there is a man in it, was, shall I say, too large, too obviously itself, to deceive the Imperial eye. We left the recluse in the moon alone, to smile in dreary solitude; interference with him would spoil the moonshine.