Besieged by the Boers; a diary of life and events in Kimberley during the siege

Front matter

BESIEGED

BY THE

BOERS

Introduction

KiMBERLEY is the second largest town in Cape Colony, and is the largest diamond mining centre in the world. It came into existence in 1870 with the discovery of diamonds, and, including its suburbs of Kenilworth, Beaconsfield, and Wesselton, has now a population of about 40,000, of which 25,000 are white. The three principal mines — Kimberley, De Beers, and Wesselton — are worked by the De Beers Consolidated Mines, Limited. This immense Company, of which Mr. Rhodes is the Chairman, has a capital of nearly four millions; pays well over a million a year in wages, and turns out ten thousand pounds^ worth of rough diamonds every working day. All Kimberley makes its living directly or indirectly from the Company, and for all practical purposes Kimberley and the Company are one. The town is 647 miles by rail from Cape Town and 485 from Port Elizabeth, and there is no English town nearer than the last named place. The Cape Town to Buluwayo Line passes through the town, but from the Orange River {"jy miles south of Kimberley) it runs for quite 400 miles close to the Orange Free State and Transvaal borders, never more than ten miles, often only two or three away from them. Kimberley itself is about four miles from the border. From its isolated position it could therefore be cut off with the greatest ease, and only relieved with the greatest difficulty, while the chance of looting its shops and well-furnished private houses naturally have had an irresistible attraction for the pious Boer and his still more pious frouw.

MEDICAL raMFORTJERTIFIGATE.

P]eMe Sitpply -...^

Name (in full) i!jS&?k?:i>...^^^k^J^.AseAe..Yeax9 Address -f(?/./!^SW^ek:fe^;^W€^V^

Nature of Complaint i

Signature of Doctor ,r^kff}^^V:i^hm,^

Countersigned

N.B. — ^This certificate Djust be countersigned at the Office in Chapel-street (back ot White's Bairdressing Establishment, Dutoitspan Road), between the hours of 10 a m. and 12 noon, and j&om 4 p.iD- to 6 p.m., and not taken to Lennos-street..

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Boers Strike First ... 3

II Fighting and Raiding . . • 17

CHAPTER I KiMBERLEY, November i8, i8pp

NO one knows when this will get posted, for it is five weeks to-day since we were cut off from the outside world, and though all along we have been hearing of troops on the way to relieve us, they are just as far off as ever for all we know. I think, therefore, that as there will be so much to write about when we are relieved I had better be getting some of it jotted down.

My last letter was written on October 8th, the day after we had had the parade of all our defence forces. Things went along quietly the first part of the next week, though we kept hearing plenty of rumours as to the Boer movements, but on Thursday, October I2tli, hostilities really began near Mafeking. Colonel Baden-Powell, who commanded there, seeing that war was inevitable, practically ordered all the women and children to leave, as he foresaw that the place would be very aggressively attacked.

These non-combatants left in a special train, an armour-plated train escorting it as far as Vryburg. It then started on the return journey. All went well till Kraaipan was reached, about twenty miles this side of Mafeking, where the Boers had torn up the rails so that the train ran off the road and came to a standstill. Then they pounded away at her with rifles and a small field gun until all resistance ceased, after which any men left alive were taken prisoners and carried off.

The first report we got was that the Boers had put a big gun directly in front of the returning train and blown the whole thing to bits, killing every soul in it. This, however, turned out to be untrue, as the engine driver managed to elude the Boers, and got away to Vryburg and gave the correct version. Lieutenant Nesbit, who was in charge of the train, had been warned that the Boers held the line and that it was unsafe for him to return; but I suppose he thought there was just a chance of getting through, and so he risked it. He was reported to be badly wounded, but we have no further news of him as yet.

This business considerably astonished us here in Kimberley, for though the people further up country all said that war was certain to come, we did not at all believe it. The result of course was to increase the activity of the military, police and town guard, and everything was done to hurry on our defences as quickly as possible. The 13th and 14th passed quietly without any alarm, but late on the night of the 14th (Saturday) a well known man sent for me to come out to see his sick child, and told me news had just come in that the railway had been torn up at Spytfontein, about eight miles south of Kimberley. Next morning, about 6.30 A.M., Stoney came in to tell me that the railway had also been cut at Riverton Road, ten miles north of Kimberley, and the water-works at Riverton had been taken by the Boers and our water supply cut off, so we were practically in a state of siege. The alarm was to sound at about 9 A.M. and every one would have to go to his post. This was nice news, but all we could do was to make the best of it.

My first move was to fill up my big rain-water tank, the big bath, and every available receptacle, so that we should have a reserve to fall back upon in case of need, and most of the people did the same thing.

On the next day notice was given that in order to economise water as much as possible

(the reservoir in the town only holding enough' for about three weeks) the supply would only be turned on from nine to eleven o'clock each morning, and that any one found watering a garden or caught using water for anything except purely domestic and necessary purposes would have his supply permanently cut off, without respect to persons.

Quite early in the morning a big proclamation was issued that from that time forward martial law was in force, and that no one would be allowed out of his house between 9 p.m and 6 A.M., without a special permit. All sorts of other subjects were touched upon in the proclamation, but that was the most important. I went round doing my work as usual, but at about 11 A.M. the ^'hooters" gave the alarm, and every one hurried to his post. Many people had been warned and expected the alarm, but in the lower quarters of the town it came as a surprise, and there was quite a panic there. In some of the better streets, too, where a few excitable women lived near each other, there was a good deal of excitement, for the women ran around frightening each other with yarns as to the number of Boers that could be seen advancing and how very easily they could take Kimberley and all the rest of it.

For some time before this the garrison had been busy putting up earthworks and loopholed forts, in the most saHent positions all round the town, on the tops of the d^ris heaps, and at the points which commanded the roads, etc. They had also formed a town guard, which nearly all the able-bodied men of all ranks joined, and these men turned out to man the forts. We had only about six hundred regulars here, and about the same number of volunteers and volunteer artillery. These had all been in camp for some days, but as the circle enclosed by the forts was fully thirteen miles in circumference they could not adequately man the forts, so the idea was and has been all along that the town guard should man the forts, while the regulars, volunteers, and artillery were camped in a central position ready to turn out and proceed to any quarter upon which an attack was made.

Rumours kept flying round all the morning, but nothing happened. A patrol of the mounted police went out towards Riverton, and was chased by a superior force of Dutch and had to leave behind two men whose horses were either shot or fell with them. One of the men I knew well, as he was the man from whom I always bought my horns. They were reported shot, but some days after we heard that they had only been made prisoners.

The armoured train went out both sides of

Kitnberley, and was fired on and forced to retreat, and so it wore on to night, nothing happening, but many rumours going the rounds.

Just before the outbreak Dr. Fuller decided to send his wife and family away to Cape Town, and he went part of the way with them. He had only just got back when he got a wire that his baby had been killed in an accident near Beaufort West, so off he went on Friday to his wife, passing Dr. Watkins on the way, the latter on his return from an English holiday. On Saturday the railway was cut, and so Fuller could not return, but had to go on to Cape Town, and Watkins took his place to work with me at the hospital.

Another doctor who had only just bought a practice here fled on Saturday. I used to know him some years ago, and thought he was all right; but he has since married a Dutchwoman and degenerated, to all appearances, into a thorough-going Boer. His wife's sister is the wife of a Kimberley lawyer, a prominent Bondsman, and as disloyal as the rest of that ilk. As soon as the trouble began the lawyer cleared out, and is supposed to have taken the doctor with him. He is reported to be with the besieging Boers, but those who know him do not believe he will push far to the front with them, unless they happen to be running away, though his intimate knowledge of Kimberley may be useful to them. But I imagine the Kimberley people won't patronise that doctor much if he ever has the audacity to re-establish himself here.

Rhodes turned up here too the last day the railway was open. Many people were wild with indignation against him, thinking that he would be an additional inducement to the Boers to attack us, but I think it was very plucky of him to come and stand by the town which made him, and with which he is so intimately connected. He did not stay idle long, but began at once to raise a regiment of his own, the Kimberley Light Horse, paying for everything in connection with them out of his own pocket.

Next day, Monday, October i6th, was much quieter; nothing had been seen or heard of the Dutch, and there were various rumours that relief from Orange River was close at hand, which quieted people down a good deal.

The 17th was not a happy day for us altogether, though we heard that the Boers had been beaten back from Mafeking and lost many men, while nearer home we heard that the people at Vryburg and Warrenton were either too afraid or too disloyal to help the mounted police there, and as the latter were far too few to defend the places successfully without the townspeople's aid they retired on Kimberley, leaving Vryburg and the Fourteen Streams Bridge at Warrenton over the Vaal River to the Dutch. The captain in charge of the Vryburg men was so broken down at having to retreat that he blew his brains out, a few miles from Vryburg. The men at Fourteen Streams left their tents with lights burning in them, but brought everything else off safely. When morning came the Dutch fired into the deserted camp for two hours, and then sent a Kaffir to see whether any one was left alive ! They were surprised to find every one had gone.

The two bodies of police got in safely via Barkley on Wednesday, October i8th. Nothing happened except that Agnes' troubles began. Many people had rushed into town on the first day of alarm and had no occupation or means of livelihood, and a relief committee was formed to enquire into their cases and help them if they were deserving. Agnes, always too willing where any unfortunates were to be helped, commenced to work six hours a day in this cause. After a few days she was quite exhausted, so I cut the work down to three, and even that proved too much for her after a couple of weeks. When there was talk of relief, many people declined to work, but tried their best to get food for nothing.

One day over one hundred and sixty natives were told that if they wanted help they must work for it, and stone breaking work was offered them. Three only accepted it. This was a fair example of the style of most of the people who applied for relief.

On Thursday, October 19th, there were all sorts of rumours about as to the railway having been broken all the way down to Hex River, and that the Colonial Dutch had risen to join the Transvaal. This made a run on the provision stores, as, if it was true, it meant that it would be a long time before we could get new supplies of food in. At least most people thought so, forgetting that most of our supplies came via Port Elizabeth, which is nearly two hundred miles nearer. Anyhow there was a run on provisions, etc., and the store-keepers naturally put the prices up. Paraffin, which had been selling at 16s. 6d., went up to £3 for a ten-gallon case, and other things in proportion. We had laid by a fair stock of stuff previous to this, but I got in two additional sacks of flour, to be on the safe side.

This tremendous run up of prices made it very hard on the poor, so the military authorities took the matter in hand and issued a proclamation next day that all prices were to be the same exactly as they were before the siege began. This was a very good thing, and of course they took good care to see that it was carried out by instituting heavy penalties for any store-keeper who overcharged.

We have had plenty of military proclamations, but most of them have been wise, such as forbidding the sale of liquor to natives except during very limited hours, and later on absolutely prohibiting the sale of liquor to them at all. The bar-keepers did not like this last one, but after one of them had been fined £30 and his bar completely closed till the end of the siege came they saw that they had to obey it.

At about this time my new single-horse trap was completed, and I tried two of my horses in it and found they went very well. I therefore thought that I would sell out all but my best horses, and do the work with three or even two if the keeping of them got to be too dear. I played the role of the good citizen by lending one horse to the volunteers, on condition that I was to have him back when things came right. Even if he died or got shot it was better than having him looted by a thieving Boer. I sold another animal to the Light Horse, and found that I could do my work with the three remaining quite well, running a single horse half the day and the old cart with a pair the other half.

About the first day I had the new cart out I had an amusing experience. After the preliminary alarm the military people blocked all the small streets leading into the town with barricades of old waggons, carts, water-tanks, and other heavy lumber, and where this was not available they put up strong, high, barbed- wire fences, with eight or nine strands.

The main streets were barricaded in just the same way as the small ones, but an opening was left in the centre and a guard, either of volunteers or town guard or police, was put on duty there, with orders to allow no one to pass in or out without a properly signed permit, and even then to search both their carts and pockets if they thought fit. The first day these orders were in force I wanted to see a patient about one hundred yards beyond one of the barriers. I did not know the orders, as no notice of them had been given, and when I got near the barrier I saw carts being stopped, so I said to the man on guard, ''Are you going to stop me, too?"

''Yes," he said, "unless you have a permit."

"May I leave my cart here and walk over there to see the patient?"

"No, if you have no permit neither you nor the cart can pass."

So I said, "All right, orders are orders; I will go and get a pass."

The joke was that the man on ^uard was a patient of my own and knew me well, but he was quite right.

On more than one occasion Rhodes has been stopped at the barrier and asked for his permit, and at one barrier where the orders were to search everybody, the guards stopped him and told him that he would have to be searched. Rhodes fumed and blustered and said he had never heard of such damned insolence, but the guard was firm, so Rhodes burst out laughing and produced a permit to pass the barrier without being searched. He was just testing the men's discipline. Whatever else he may be, he is no coward; he goes through the barrier and rides far out on the veldt almost every afternoon, with only one or two friends and no escort at all. He always wears white flannel trousers, and is most conspicuous. Nothing could save him if a Boer chose to lie in wait and pot him with a long range shot, and as the Mauser rifle which the Boers use carries well over a mile the marksman could be well in among his own people long before any of our soldiers could get a chance at him.

That this could easily happen is shown by what occurred on October 20th. A patrol of the mounted volunteers (Diamond Fields' Horse) was out scouting early in the morning. No Boers were seen anywhere about, when

KENILWORTII BARRICADE.

MR. RHODES'S NOTICE AT THE BARBED-WIRE BARRIER.

without warning a shot was fired and one of the sergeants fell off his horse, dead. The men hunted the whole country in the neighbourhood, but could not find a sign or footprint of anybody. The modern rifle fires smokeless powder, so no smoke was seen and no one knows who fired the shot.

On the same day we heard that the Boers had issued a proclamation declaring Bechuanaland to be Transvaal and Griqualand West, Orange Free State territory, but of course our commander. Colonel Kekewich, promptly issued a counter proclamation warning all loyal subjects not to have any faith with such misrepresentations, as these territories were still British in spite of the Boer proclamation.

Kekewich is the colonel in command of the Lancashires; he is a Devonshire man, though his name does not sound like it, and is a splendid fellow. Everybody likes him. He is the head of the whole business, and must have had an anxious time, as he is responsible for everything. I think I mentioned that a lookout tower has been put up on top of the most centrally situated mine head-gear. This must be about one hundred and twenty feet above the street level, and gives a splendid view of all the surrounding country, and here the colonel spends most of his day, watching what the

Boers, and our own men, too, for that matter, are up to. The top of this tower is in telephonic communication with all the forts, so that orders are sent from it to all points with great rapidity. At night there are strong electric search-lights in commanding positions at the forts, and these are at work during all the dark hours, so that it is impossible for the Boers to make any advance without its being known at once. That is the advantage of having an immensely wealthy Company like the De Beers in the place. They have skilled mechanics and electricians and machinery and appliances to do almost anything, and we do not now know what we should have done without them. As a matter of fact, though, we should never have been besieged but for the mines. The Boers openly gave out that they wanted to take Rhodes prisoner and to blow up his mines, and did not wish to injure anybody else.

After the first alarm the De Beers people brought in all or a great part of their cattle from their outlying farms and herded about fifteen hundred of them just outside Kenilworth. Having failed to do much by cutting off our water supply, the enemy thought they would try for our food supply next, and I suppose their natural love of cattle stirred them up, too, for if there is anything for which a Boer will risk his life it is cattle.

Chapter II

On Tuesday, October 24th, a patrol of our men was out, and ran across a strong force of Boers, whose object was evidently to raid cattle. A brisk engagement ensued about six miles out, and re-enforcements went out to our men ; but, owing to their being guided by a man who did not know the ground well, they got into difficulties, and were attacked by a body of Boers who had taken up their position behind the bank of a dry dam, the existence of which the guide was ignorant. The colonel, seeing there was likely to be a defeat, sent out some of the Lancashires in the armoured train, and they promptly drove out the Boers, converting what was very nearly a disaster into a drawn game. The Boers drew off and so did we. The casualties on our side were pretty large— three killed and about twenty-five wounded, four of them severely. Out of the wounded, three were officers, two of them badly hit, the bullets splinter-

IS. BESIEGED BY THE BOERS

ing the thigh bone in both cases. The Boer loss was not and never will be known, but must have been pretty heavy. The only certain thing about it was that their commandant was killed. He was left on the field when the Boers retired, and being a man from Boshof and well known in Kimberley he was easily identified by our people. He was in Kimberley on the Saturday afternoon that all the forces were reviewed, and is reported to have rather sneered at the show, saying it would just be a comfortable handful for the Boers. He met his death early, and, as he was well known and popular among the Boers, his death must have disconcerted them considerably.

We had a pretty busy time at the hospital when the wounded came in. I got five of them under my hands, but only two were more than trifles — an officer shot through the chest, and a sergeant shot through the arm, splintering up the bone. We doctors had all of us seen a few bullet wounds with revolvers and such like, but had no experience of the modern rifle bullet, and it was a revelation to us. The bullet, especially of the Mauser rifle which the Dutch use, is so small and travels with such velocity that it drills clean through everything, and unless it strikes a vital part or hits a bone or big artery the injury it inflicts is ridiculous. The officer shot through the chest left the hospital on the eighth day, and returned to duty on the ninth, though this consisted of at least twelve miles' riding every day. Wounds through the fleshy parts heal in a couple of days, and give no trouble after a week. But a Mauser bullet will drive clean through anything. One poor chap in another engagement was shot in the ribs of the right side far back, and the bullet travelled right through him in a slanting direction and came out at the outer side of the left thigh about its middle, cutting the spine right across on its way and completely paralysing him. He only lived a few hours. Another bullet in this Dronfield fight of which I have been speaking hit the ammunition box of the Maxim gun. The ammunition is carried in a stout canvas belt, like the leather bandolier. The box is strong and the cartridges are solid brass (not cardboard), and yet the bullet drove through the box and through no less than ten cartridges with the intervening twenty thicknesses of canvas, and none of the cartridges exploded.

After this brush things were very quiet for several days. We, got news of some of the Natal fights, and heard that the Boers had been repulsed from Mafeking every time they tried to take it, which encouraged us a good deal. There were many disquieting rumours though as to the strength of the Boers, and the big siege guns they were bringing to bombard us with. The alarmists talked glibly about forty pounders, though our artillerymen told us that a forty pounder is so heavy that it would take about seventy mules or oxen to drag it. This, however, was a detail which the alarmists ignored.

From the 8th of October on we had beautiful rains at intervals of a few days, and the water came in very handy. I got in another big water-tank, and arranged my water-pipes to run into it. During each rain I filled every available receptacle, just like old times at home. Our garden was coming on beautifully when we had to give up watering it, but the rains kept it just going, and I managed to keep the vines and vegetables alive with bath and refuse water. At first we filled the tanks and kept them as a reserve in case the water in the reservoir gave out before we were relieved, but by the time we had been shut up about three weeks the De Beers Company, as usual, came to the rescue.

One of their mines, the Wesselton, has a big stream of underground water in it, and this water has for the last year or two been pumped into a dam at Kenilworth, from which it is taken to the floors and used for washing "the

THE CONNING TOWER.

blue" or diamondiferous earth. In one place this water-main ran close to the water company's main, so De Beers put on a gang of Kaffirs and joined the two, after which he was able to pump from The Wesselton to the reservoir. So we had a good supply of water once more, much harder than our regular supply from the Vaal River, but quite good all the same, and sufficient for all purposes except watering gardens. After this supply was fixed up we felt safe in using any rain-water we saved for the garden, and did so; but a good many of the shallow-rooted things had died, though the vegetables were flourishing. The first rumour about the water-works had been that the Boers had blown the pumping machinery up on the first day of the siege, but later this turned out to be incorrect. They took possession of it and were going to blow it up, but the wily engineer, who was captured at the same time, is reported to have said, "Why do you destroy your own property? When you have taken Kimberley you will want a water supply just the same, and it will cost a good deal to replace the machinery." He went on to suggest that they could cut off the Kimberley water, and do themselves a good turn at the same time, by pulling up the pipes at a place six miles from the river, where they ran through a pan which had water in it only after very heavy rains. Then they could pump river water into this pan, and thus have a watering place for their horses much nearer Kimberley. The Boers were agreeable to this plan and carried it out. Of course the engineer's idea was to try and save the pumps if possible. But the Boers have laid dynamite ready to blow them up if they have to retreat, and they probably will do so unless the engineer manages to wet the dynamite.

The hotel-keeper at Riverton, where we have stayed several times, is said to be doing a roaring trade, as the Boers are paying him for all they take, but this was arranged by the commandant who was shot. He was a great friend of the hotel-keeper's. Whether this state of things will go on now nobody knows, but the Boers are quite equal to demanding every penny he has and then shooting him when they retreat. That is what one is afraid of for the outlying people. So long as all goes well with them, the Boers may be fairly civil, but when they are beaten and have to retreat there is no dastardly cruelty that they will not do. The cowardly brutes have said that in that case they intend to shoot men, women, and children. On the other hand, if they were to win, their programme, as laid down by their own rabble, is