Saturday again. Lord Methuen proclaimed it through the throat of his cannon. Long Cecil—pretending to deduce from their silence that the Boers imagined it to be Sunday—was most profuse in the distribution of "compliments." But no acknowledgment came back, no error was admitted, and the day dragged itself to an end, leaving little in its train to turn one's thoughts from gloomy retrospection.
It was at this time that practical people began to express amazement at the conduct of their less practical neighbours. A new epidemic had broken out. The doctrine of self-help was being practised with a vengeance. The pleasure of gardening was the newest discovery. In short, the notion of growing vegetables on our own, so to speak, since we could not buy them readymade, had come to be acclaimed as the higher sagacity. The curious feature of this departure was that it should grow in popularity as the Siege approached its appointed end. Relief or no relief, the vegetables would not be wasted. But the practical people only laughed at economic platitudes. Vegetable seeds were in great demand, and families were everywhere to be seen reclaiming their ten by ten feet patches of common-age—where half a blade of grass had never grown before! Some enthusiasts, to enlarge their holdings, went even so far as to pull down their untenanted fowl-houses. The soil was not so favourable to horticulture as it might have been, but the best was made of it. Inspired by a determination to live as long as possible we ruthlessly uprooted our flowers, and conjured up visions of unborn potatoes and cabbage. If the Military kept whittling down our rations, if we were to be permitted only to nibble like so many birds, the vegetables might one day serve as a dernier ressort. Who could tell?
The enterprise displayed was admirable; but—had we to wait till the vegetables grew? Were they to grow while we waited? This sudden zeal for the development of the land recalled the song of the condemned Irishman who took advantage of his judge's clemency, and with characteristic humour selected a gooseberry bush from which to be hanged. When the objection was raised that "it would not be high enough," he expressed his willingness to wait till it grew!
This policy of despair irritated the landless classes, and some of them were mean enough to remind us that Martial Law forbade the use of water for gardening purposes. But the reminder only furnished the workers with a fresh incentive; it made their work a real as well as an ideal pleasure. The possibility of breaking the "Law" (with impunity) was worth a deal of productive, or unproductive, labour. The bread ordinance had not increased our respect for "benevolent" despotism. Any chance of setting at naught the absolute prepensities of our legislators (with a watering-can or by judicious keyhole stuffing, to hide the light) was duly availed of.
No amount of the portentous signalling that went on night after night could resuscitate our faith in the Military. An age ago the Magersfontein misfortune had put off indefinitely the long-expected succour. We had been made to feel our insignificance beside the "Military Situation." Our population after all was mainly black, but black or white, we were nothing to the "Military Situation." Sickness might increase, and troubles multiply; Kafirs and children might perish in batches; meanwhile the "Military Situation" decried even a tear.
Chapter XVII
Week ending 10th February, 1900
The pen-ultimate Sunday of our captivity was notable for nothing but the average crop of rumours which had characterised every day of our Siege existence. The listlessness of the people stood out in marked contrast to their sanguine outlook when the Siege was young, and when the folly of prophesying unless one knew remained not only, as it were, unsmoked but outside our pipes altogether. Still—to pursue the metaphor—our pretensions in the role of prophet had clearly ended in smoke. Happily, the disillusioning fog had come upon us by degrees. The cheerfulness with which we had resigned ourselves to bear the first-class misdemeanant's treatment of a cut and dry "three weeks'" imprisonment but exemplified, we had thought in all seriousness, the traditional sporting instincts of our race; and though it was not over-pleasing to our traditional pride, the destruction of our dogmas had not been taken to heart. Our faith in the invincibility of the British army had long continued unshaken. The interval between the expiry of the period (of three weeks) which with the collective wisdom of all the wizards we had decreed to be a synonym for the Siege's duration, and the morning of the pronouncement relative to the advance of the Column from Orange River, had had its tedium neutralised by a cheerful vituperation of Gladstone's defective statesmanship in the year of 'eighty-one and his wicked efforts at a later date to "give Ireland away too." The move from Orange River had occasioned general rejoicings. Unaccountable delay ensued. One disappointment was followed by another. Anxiety began to manifest itself. The dire stage of doubt was reached. Hunger, thirst, and horseflesh succeeded in due order; until at last we saw:—
What shadows we are,