CHAPTER V

Week ending 18th November, 1899

Sunday again! the most popular day of the seven; pre-eminently so since the war began.  The peace that marked an occasional week-day was the certain accompaniment of the Sunday.  The conditions of life were normal on Sunday; its advent made us happy.  Following upon the unpleasant experiences of the previous day it was peculiarly welcome, albeit, mayhap, the herald of troublous times.  The death of the poor washerwoman had opened up a world of possibilities; morbid forebodings were conjured up by morbid people, and nobody dreamt of measuring future fatalities by so low an average as one per day.  But yesterday, we were as safe as if we were “in Piccadilly.”  A great man had said so—­a great man and millionaire.  His name was Rhodes, Mr. Cecil Rhodes, Chairman of the De Beers Corporation, and “no mean judge of a situation,” our newspaper stated in substantiation of his Piccadilly peccadillo.  He had come up specially for the siege, it was said by some who, had they but half his foresight, would have “specially” gone away for it.  Well, Mr. Rhodes, felt safe and we, too, had felt safe until the sad event of Saturday rather neutralised the confidence inspired by the shrewd, but human, millionaire.  There was a minority, indeed, who could not logically look for aught but ruin and disaster as a sequence to the shock of Saturday.  “Look at the narrow escapes so many had,” the minority argued.  There were plenty of stories.  Legends of hairbreadth escapes were legion.  They were well told by fluent liars, by such raconteurs as talk of prodigious things in fishing, and catch nothing but colds.  The narrow escapes were yet to come.  Our wounded in the hospital were doing well; some of them had already been discharged. Their escapes had been narrow enough, in all conscience; but they were not romantic; they occurred on the field of battle.

The enemy apparently “slept it out” on Monday.  There was no firing until eight o’clock when a beginning was made with Wesselton.  A number of shells fell in the vicinity of the mine; but, as a lady afterwards reported:  “they did not hit even a dog.”  Some missiles fell also on the Bulfontein side, and were buried in the debris heaps.  A more serious assault was subsequently opened on the town itself; for several hours shells came pouring in from Kamfers Dam and the Lazaretto Ridge.  The firing did not cease until upwards of seventy missiles had burst in the streets.  In the market square a horse was killed—­one of two attached to a Cape cart.  The other animal remained alive, very much alive, as its kicking testified.  The driver of the vehicle, a Dutchman, received a wound in the arm.  Another Dutchman, curiously enough, was injured slightly while injudiciously exposing himself on top of a debris heap.  Happily, no more serious casualities occurred.  The Municipal Compound and the Fire Brigade Station had to bear the brunt of the bombardment, but the damage done was small.