Which he had expended
his energies and his fortune but the development of the country in
every conceivable respect, from the building of a railway to the
importation of a pedigree bull, engaged his unremitting attention.
It was on October 15th that the fifty thousand inhabitants of
Kimberley first heard the voice of war. It rose and fell in a
succession of horrible screams and groans which travelled far over
the veld, and the outlying farmers marvelled at the dreadful
clamour from the sirens and the hooters of the great mines. Those
who have endured all - the rifle, the cannon, and the hunger - have
said that those wild whoops from the sirens were what had tried
their nerve the most.
The Boers in scattered bands of horsemen were thick around the
town, and had blocked the railroad. They raided cattle upon the
outskirts, but made no attempt to rush the defence. The garrison,
who, civilian and military, approached four thousand in number, lay
close in rifle pit and redoubt waiting for an attack which never
came. The perimeter to be defended was about eight miles, but the
heaps of tailings made admirable fortifications, and the town had
none of those inconvenient heights around it which had been such
bad neighbours to Ladysmith. Picturesque surroundings are not
favourable to defence.
On October 24th the garrison, finding that no attack was made,
determined upon a reconnaissance. The mounted force, upon which
most of the work and of the loss fell, consisted of the Diamond
Fields Horse, a small number of Cape Police, a company of Mounted
Infantry, and a body called the Kimberley Light Horse. With two
hundred and seventy volunteers from this force Major Scott-Turner,
a redoubtable fighter, felt his way to the north until he came in
touch with the Boers. The latter, who were much superior in
numbers, manoeuvred to cut him off, but the arrival of two
companies of the North Lancashire Regiment turned the scale in our
favour. We lost three killed and twenty-one wounded in the
skirmish. The Boer loss is unknown, but their commander Botha was
slain.
On November 4th Commandant Wessels formally summoned the town, and
it is asserted that he gave Colonel Kekewich leave to send out the
women and children. That officer has been blamed for not taking
advantage of the permission - or at the least for not communicating
it to the civil authorities. As a matter of fact the charge rests
upon a misapprehension. In Wessels' letter a distinction is made
between Africander and English women, the former being offered an
asylum in his camp. This offer was made known, and half a dozen
persons took advantage of it. The suggestion, however, in the case
of the English carried with it no promise that they would be
conveyed to Orange River, and a compliance with it would have put
them as helpless hostages into the hands of the enemy.
