On
November 3rd the garrison rushed the Brickfields, which had been
held by the enemy's sharpshooters, and on the 7th another small
sally kept the game going. On the 18th Powell sent a message to
Snyman that he could not take the town by sitting and looking at
it. At the same time he despatched a message to the Boer forces
generally, advising them to return to their homes and their
families. Some of the commandos had gone south to assist Cronje in
his stand against Methuen, and the siege languished more and more,
until it was woken up by a desperate sortie on December 26th, which
caused the greatest loss which the garrison had sustained. Once
more the lesson was to be enforced that with modern weapons and
equality of forces it is always long odds on the defence.
On this date a vigorous attack was made upon one of the Boer forts
on the north. There seems to be little doubt that the enemy had
some inkling of our intention, as the fort was found to have been
so strengthened as to be impregnable without scaling ladders. The
attacking force consisted of two squadrons of the Protectorate
Regiment and one of the Bechuanaland Rifles, backed up by three
guns. So desperate was the onslaught that of the actual attacking
party - a forlorn hope, if ever there was one - fifty-three out of
eighty were killed and wounded, twenty-five of the former and
twenty-eight of the latter. Several of that gallant band of
officers who had been the soul of the defence were among the
injured. Captain FitzClarence was wounded, Vernon, Sandford, and
Paton were killed, all at the very muzzles of the enemy's guns. It
must have been one of the bitterest moments of Baden-Powell's life
when he shut his field-glass and said, 'Let the ambulance go out!'
Even this heavy blow did not damp the spirits nor diminish the
energies of the defence, though it must have warned Baden-Powell
that he could not afford to drain his small force by any more
expensive attempts at the offensive, and that from then onwards he
must content himself by holding grimly on until Plumer from the
north or Methuen from the south should at last be able to stretch
out to him a helping hand. Vigilant and indomitable, throwing away
no possible point in the game which he was playing, the new year
found him and his hardy garrison sternly determined to keep the
flag flying.
January and February offer in their records that monotony of
excitement which is the fate of every besieged town. On one day the
shelling was a little more, on another a little less.
