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. Sometimes
they escaped scatheless, sometimes the garrison found itself the
poorer by the loss of Captain Girdwood or Trooper Webb or some
other gallant soldier. Occasionally they had their little triumph
when a too curious Dutchman, peering for an instant from his cover
to see the effect of his shot, was carried back in the ambulance to
the laager. On Sunday a truce was usually observed, and the snipers
who had exchanged rifle-shots all the week met occasionally on that
day with good-humoured chaff. Snyman, the Boer General, showed none
of that chivalry at Mafeking which distinguished the gallant old
Joubert at Ladysmith. Not only was there no neutral camp for women
or sick, but it is beyond all doubt or question that the Boer guns
were deliberately turned upon the women's quarters inside Mafeking
in order to bring pressure upon the inhabitants. Many women and
children were sacrificed to this brutal policy, which must in
fairness be set to the account of the savage leader, and not of the
rough but kindly folk with whom we were fighting. In every race
there are individual ruffians, and it would be a political mistake
to allow our action to be influenced or our feelings permanently
embittered by their crimes.
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