The negotiations dragged on and B-P fidgeted. He had Cecil at his side pressing him to make the exchange and warning how bad it would look to permit an Englishwoman to remain a Boer prisoner, especially an Englishwoman of Lady Sarah’s rank, but on the other hand he was afraid of trouble from the authorities if he released a convicted horse thief. He tried offering another burgher, but Snyman, as much as he wanted to rid himself of Lady Sarah, would have Viljoen or no one.
So things might have remained, and Lady Sarah might have spent a few weeks longer sleeping on her detested couch, had not Cecil put an end to the impasse by offering to shoulder the entire responsibility for the exchange himself. Greatly relieved, B-P declared a truce, and on 7 December, a mile outside of town, the horse thief was traded for the lady. B-P and Cecil were on hand to welcome Lady Sarah. Her husband seems to have been elsewhere.
Cecil’s own wife, the beautiful Lady Violet, twenty-eight years old, was meanwhile keeping busy in Cape Town, where she was living at Rhodes’s house and seeing a great deal of Milner, her future second husband. “I do not know how I have got through this time. I should not have but for Milner, I think,” she told her mother. When news of the relief of Mafeking reached her, she went to bed with a sick headache.
Safe in Mafeking, Lady Sarah was not idle; she ordered the construction of a bomb-proof shelter, the finest in town. There were, in fact, few rooms even above ground in dusty little Mafeking that could compare with it, for it measured a generous 18 by 15 by 8 feet and boasted white painted panelling among other amenities. Lady Sarah celebrated its completion with a dinner party for the senior officers of the garrison. She became correspondent for the Daily Mail, and she helped with the nursing of the convalescents in the convent. A few weeks after her arrival she was wounded—well, bruised—by an exploding Boer shell.
As at Ladysmith and Kimberley, guns were given names. One Boer Creusot was known as “Creaky,” or sometimes “Big Ben”; another was named “Gentle Annie.” The British had a 6-inch gun they had made themselves which they called “the Wolf”; it could fire an 18-pound shell about 4,000 yards. And another local gun, “Lord Nelson” or “Skipping Sally,” was a real curiosity: it was a smooth-bore, muzzle-loading naval gun that fired round balls. It had been constructed in 1770 and at some time in the nineteenth century had been presented to Montsioa, chief of the Barolongs. For the past twenty years it had been buried in the ground, but now the Barolongs dug it up and gave it back to the British. The initials of its manufacturer were stamped on it, and they seemed most apposite: “B.P. and Co.” Powder bags for this antique were stitched together by a group of women, including the Sisters of Mercy nuns.
In Mafeking as in the other besieged towns the British were struck by the curious regularity of the Boer shelling, and Emerson Neilly, of the Pall Mall Gazette, went so far as to report that some people “timed their watches by the fire.”15
At first the Boers experienced some difficulty with their shells; not all of them exploded. But at Mafeking there was at least one deliberate dud. Opened, it was found to contain a note:
Mr. Baden-Powell—Please excuse me for sending this iron message i have no other to send at present. He is rather exentric but forgive him if he does not behave well. I wish to ask you not to let your men drink all the whisky as i wish to have a drink when we all come to see you. Cindly tell Mrs Dunkley that her mother and vamily are all quite well. I remain, Yours trewly, A Republican.16
The next morning B-P dispatched a bottle of whiskey in care of Snyman for the thirsty republican. Snyman investigated and discovered that the note sender was a burgher named C. H. Perrin. He reported the incident to Kruger by telegraph, adding: “What must I do? I had him court-martialed. He said he meant no harm.”17
Thanks to their dugouts, there were few casualties among the Europeans from the Boer shells—oniy four white civilians were killed during the entire siege, not counting E. G. Parslow, correspondent for the Daily Chronicle, who was murdered by an officer of the garrison. Among the civilians wounded was the town’s special constable; a shell “fractured his private parts in a most pitiful manner.”18 The Bantu, however, did not make shelters for themselves and none were made for them; 329 were killed. They also suffered from the neglect, or at least the indifference, of the white men. Vere Stent, the Reuters correspondent, claimed that at least one doctor did not use anesthetics when he operated on Bantu patients.
The Barolong tribe, which was native to the area, had cattle and gardens of their own, but the Bantu who had come from the Rand had no food and no money to buy any. They killed and ate dogs, and when they could and when they dared they stole. The penalty for theft was death, and five Bantu were executed during the siege, one for stealing a goat.
Such stern measures might have been excusable had there been a shortage of food, but although stocks of certain items ran out, there was plenty of food in town. Even after one hundred days of siege Well still had 2,450 pounds of sardines, 10,488 pounds of boiled mutton, and vast quantities of corned beef and other tinned foods. Beef was issued to Europeans throughout the siege; rations of horse meat were supplied only during the last two months, and then only three days a week. There was a large quantity of rice, which might have been used to feed the Bantu but was not. Eventually “a foul-smelling horse-meat factory” was established southwest of town and a soup kitchen was organised to supply them with horse meat stew mixed with oat husks, but there was a charge of threepence and most could not pay. For the Europeans rationing did not begin until the sixth week of the siege, and even then the allowance was liberal: one pound per day each of meat, bread, and vegetables, plus milk, eggs, and poultry; a wide variety of luxury foods was available at Weil’s store.
At Christmas the Boers also wanted to celebrate in peace, and so a truce was arranged. There were, though, eight shots fired accidentally by a British soldier showing a young woman a machine gun. The British formally apologised. The Christmas menu offered by Mr. G. Riesle, proprietor of the Mafeking Hotel, included anchovy croûtons, olives, oyster patties, tongue, ham, veal, beef, lamb, suckling pig, mutton, bacon, potatoes, peas, mince pies, puddings, and jellies. B-P and his staff were given a turkey dinner in Lady Sarah’s dugout.
C. G. H. Bell complained that he was bothered all Christmas Day by Bantu who leaned against his garden wall hitting their bellies and complaining of their hunger. “These people will soon be a source of anxiety to us,” he wrote that night.
Conditions among the Bantu worsened as the siege dragged on. Emerson Neilly wrote a pathetic account of their plight: “I saw them fall down on the veldt and lie where they had fallen, too weak to go on their way. The sufferers were mostly little boys—mere infants ranging in age from four or five upwards.”19
Plaatje, whose job as an interpreter provided him with money to buy food, wrote in his diary: “It is really pitiful to see.... Last month one died in the Civil Commissioner’s yard. It was a miserable scene to be surrounded by about 50 hungry beings, agitating the engagement of your pity and see one of them succumb to his agonies and fall backwards with a dead thud.”20
Although Plaatje accepted the sufferings of his countrymen as a siege necessity, some of the newsmen were roused to indignation. Angus Hamilton wrote: “There can be no doubt that the drastic principles of economy which Colonel Baden-Powell has been practicing in these later days are opposed to and altogether at variance with the dignity and liberalism which we profess.”21
The Bantu, it was reasoned, were free to leave the town whenever they chose, so it was wasteful to give them food. Unfortunately, there was no place for them to go, except to the Boers, who did not want them either.
The problem was partially solved when Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Plumer established a depot some 60 miles from the town for their reception. Plumer, in command of the second regiment Baden-Powell had raised, had been skillfully doing the work on the frontier that B-P had been sent to South Africa to do and with his small force had been successfully operating
along the Transvaal-Rhodesian border. Eventually about 1,200 Bantu were persuaded to leave Mafeking and make their way to him.
The Bantu were encouraged to steal from the Boers, and a number of those armed as “cattle guards” went out on armed expeditions to raid the Boer cattle herds. They frequently exchanged shots with the owners, and a Barolong named Mathakgong was said to have killed many Boers, including women and children, on farms he raided. Most of the cattle taken were used to feed the Europeans, and on 16 February the Mafeking Mail gave thanks to Mathakgong for the “succulent, juicy undercut” that appeared on “certain breakfast tables.” In arming the Bantu Baden-Powell aroused the intense indignation of the Boers; Snyman frequently protested, and John E. Dyer, an American doctor with the Boers, wrote to B-P:
You have committed an enormous act, the wickedness of which is certain, and the end of which no man can foresee.... It has hitherto been a cardinal in South African ethics, both English and Dutch, to view with horror the idea of arming black against white, and I would ask you ... to disarm your blacks and thereby act the part of a white man in a white man’s war.22
Curiously, Baden-Powell was not criticised by his compatriots, either in South Africa or in Britain.
The day after Christmas B-P launched an attack with 260 men on a Boer position called Game Tree Fort. It was a badly managed affair. Baden-Powell, the advocate of scouting, had failed to have the Boer position properly scouted, and the British suffered 50 casualties, of whom 24 were killed or mortally wounded. After the battle the Boers, who had lost 3 men, fell to and helped the British carry off the dead and wounded, Angus Hamilton was struck by the sudden change: “People who had been pitted against each other in mortal combat the moment before were now fraternizing with every outward sign of decency and amity.” Baden-Powell wrote Snyman: “This kind action is much appreciated by the comrades of the fallen men.”23
This was not the only time Boer and Briton came together in amity. Later in the siege, when in places the lines were quite close, James Barnes reported this exchange:
“Hey! I say, one of you Boers stand up and I’ll take a photograph of you.”
“Have you got a camera?”
“Yes.”
“On your honour?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t shoot me if I stand up, upon your word?”
“No, we won’t shoot.”
“Pass it down the line.”
The word was passed, and a young Boer, about twenty-three, stood up, buttoning his jacket. He was well over 6 feet tall.
“How will you have it?”
“Turn it a little more sideways. There.”
The camera clicked.
“Thanks.”
“Send me a picture.”24
For a few moments afterwards all was quiet. Then an English soldier lifted his hat on a stick and a bullet went through it. “War is a strange thing to understand at times,” said Barnes.
There were a few desertions from the British forces. One, Trooper E. J. Hays, was believed to be directing the Boer artillery. “I shouldn’t care to be Hays after the war,” wrote F. D. Baillie for the Morning Post, “as there is £50 on his head, and the Boers are hard up.” In general, however, the morale of the besieged held up remarkably well, and on the 200th day B-P reported to Roberts:
I desire to bring to your Lordship’s notice the exceptionally good spirit of loyalty that pervades all classes of the garrison. The patience of everybody in Mafeking in making the best of things under the long strain of anxiety, hardships, and privation, is beyond all praise, and is a revelation to me. The men ... have adapted themselves to their duties with the greatest zeal, readiness, and pluck, and the devotion of the women is remarkable.25
When currency ran short B-P personally designed some notes to “be exchanged for coin at the Mafeking Branch of the Standard Bank on the resumption of Civil Law.” Postage stamps, too, were scarce, and special ones were made. On the three-penny stamps the head of the Queen was replaced by that of Baden-Powell. Later criticised for this, he claimed that the stamps had been printed without his knowledge, that he did not know of their existence until they were printed. But in a letter to his mother he spoke with delight of the new stamps with his head on them. The one-penny stamps carried a picture of a boy “cadet,” representative of a group of boys who had been dressed in khaki and trained to act as orderlies and carry messages. Although B-P took the credit for forming the “Cadet Corps,” which became the inspiration for the Boy Scouts, it was Lord Edward Cecil who conceived the idea, and it was he who drilled them, trained them, and organized games for them.
On 23 April 1900, when the siege had been in progress for more than six months, a board of officers took stock of the food still available and found that there remained meat for ninety days and breadstuffs (oat and meal) for fifty-two days, and that there was still a good supply of whiskey, brandy, and wine. The amount laid in had been so ample that Baden-Powell (who neither drank nor smoked) once closed down all the bars in town for a week because there was so much drunkenness.
Roberts had been determined that his main thrust through the Orange Free State and the Transvaal would not be diverted or his main force reduced by sending off columns to conduct sideshows. But Mafeking was very much in the public eye, and there were political pressures for its relief. At last Roberts, perhaps with a weary sigh, arranged for a force to go relieve the place. A battery of Canadian artillery which had landed at Cape Town on 26 March was reembarked less than three weeks later and sent up to Beira in Mozambique, where 100 men of the Queen-land Mounted Infantry joined them. From there by rail, mule, and horse this little force made its way to Plumer in western Rhodesia, reaching him on 14 May.
Meanwhile a flying column was being assembled under Colonel Bryan Mahon at Barclay West, some 20 miles northwest of Kimberley. Roberts carefully arranged that when this force was joined by Plumer’s it would include troops from all corners of the Empire: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Natal, and Cape Colony were represented, as well as 25 selected men each from English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh regiments. On the morning of 4 May Mahon’s force, 1,149 strong, rode out of Barclay West and the Empire was off to the rescue of Mafeking.
It had been a long but reasonably quiet siege, and B-P, aware that the eyes of the world were upon him, had gone whistling about his duties. He loved to whistle. “He warbled operatic airs and music hall ditties from morning to night,” said Neilly. The besieged in Mafeking had faith in their plucky, dapper, ever-whistling, fun-loving commander. But, as Neilly said later: “Frankly our defender’s pluck did not save Mafeking, great and heroic though that pluck was. The cowardice of the enemy saved us.” It was less cowardice than lassitude that affected the Boers, but this attitude was shaken by the arrival of Commandant Sarel Johannes Eloff, an impetuous twenty-eight-year-old grandson of Kruger. Eloff wanted to take Mafeking before the relief force arrived.
As soon as the moon came up on the night of 11 May Eloff led 300 men, many of them foreign volunteers, quietly down the bed of the Molopo River. They slipped past two British outposts and emerged in the Bantu section of town. There they set fire to several huts as a signal to Snyman that the defences had been pierced and that they were inside the town. Of course, this signal also told the British garrison the same thing. Eloff siezed a barracks and captured Colonel C. O. Hore, commanding officer of the Protectorate Regiment, three other officers, and eighteen men. Angus Hamilton wandered over to see what was happening and was also captured. The prisoners were locked in a storage room, where they opened some cases of whiskey and wine and sat down philosophically to wait things out.
According to the Boer plan, Snyman was to follow up Eloff’s success with a major attack. Eloff now waited for it to begin. While waiting, his men replied to the British musketry and found ways to amuse themselves in the barracks they held: ex-trooper Hays, the traitor, buckled on his former commanding officer’s sword; Comte de Frémont, a foreign volunteer, played French son
gs on a piano in the officers’ mess; another Frenchman took a bottle of wine onto the roof and, while shouting taunts at the British, unwisely stood up and was shot in the abdomen.
The major attack failed; Snyman’s men made no more than a few half-hearted attempts to get through. Many of Eloff’s men, with the Boer instinct for self-preservation when threatened with entrapment, made their way out of the British lines and back to their laagers. One by one the groups of Boers and foreigners who remained inside the perimeter were rounded up and forced to surrender. Finally only Eloff and 73 men were left in the surrounded barracks. At six o’clock in the evening Eloff gave up. The burghers and foreign volunteers were marched to the jail; Eloff was taken to Baden-Powell, who shook his hand and said breezily: “Good evening, Commandant, won’t you come in and have some dinner?”
The next day Baden-Powell sent Snyman a letter giving him the results of the fight, concluding with: “I should like to record my admiration for the gallant way in which your burghers fought yesterday.” Kruger was properly indignant when he heard of Snyman’s failure to support Eloff and asked if Snyman had been drunk. F. D. Baillie in his account of the attack for the Morning Post said, “It gave a pleasant finish to the siege. It wanted just a finishing touch to make it satisfactory.”
Great Boer War Page 42