On us they wasted all their lead, On us who stood at bay, And with our guns (forgive it, Stead!) Popped quietly away.
They could not make the city burn, However hard they tried. Not one of us is dead, but learn A dog it was that died.
The reaction was extraordinary. The almost unknown Colonel Baden-Powell instantly became 'B.-P.' to the general public, and in the twinkling of an eye his photograph appeared in the shop-windows beside those of Sir Redvers Buller, Sir George White, and Lord Methuen. Everybody was cracking jokes about the war, and the Boers seemed to be already under the heel of the conqueror. When men opened their newspapers in the railway carriage it was with the remark, 'How's old B.-P. getting along?' The doings of other soldiers in more important positions lost much of their interest, and the public mind became riveted on Mafeking. Here was a light-hearted cavalry- officer locked up in a little frontier town with seven hundred Irregular cavalry, a few score volunteers, six machine- guns and two 7-pounders; against whom was pitted the redoubtable Cronje with one 10-pounder, five 7-pounders, two Krupp 12-pounders, and one Krupp 94-pounder, and probably an army of something like 6000 wily Boers. And yet the Goal-Keeper, 870 miles from English Cape Town and only 150 miles from Boer Pretoria, was as light-hearted and optimistic as a general leading an overwhelming army against a baffled and disorganised foe. Englishmen were quick to recognise the virtue of the man who solemnly sent the death of a dog to be recorded in the archives of the War Office; quick to appreciate the peril of his position; and I do not think I am screwing my string too tight when I say that the safety of Baden-Powell from that moment became a personal matter to thousands of Englishmen all the world over. Miss Baden-Powell at this time was travelling in Scotland, and at some out-of-the-way station she and her boxes detrained. The station-master passing along the platform noticed the name of Baden-Powell on the trunks, and instantly rushed towards her, with beaming face and extended hand,—'Gie me the honour, ma'am,' he cried, 'o' shakin' your hand.' And from this time gifts and letters poured in ceaselessly upon Mrs. Baden-Powell in London, letters from all classes of the nation, costly gifts, humble gifts—all testifying to the giver's love and admiration of her gallant son in Mafeking. One of these presents took the form of a large portrait of B.-P. worked in coloured silks, another a little modest book-marker. And in the streets gutter-merchants were doing a roaring trade in brooches and badges with B.-P.'s face smiling on the enamel as contentedly as if immortalised on a La Creevy miniature. Finally, to complete this apotheosis, Madame Tussaud announced on flaming placards that Baden-Powell had been added to the number of her Immortals.
This, then, was the sudden fate of the man who had returned to England from wandering alone within a stone's throw of the Matabele bivouac fires unknown and unhonoured by the public. I wonder if Baden-Powell had a presentiment of what was to be when, in the early days of the siege, he corrected the proofs of
The wit of Baden-Powell in some measure obscured from the popular view the grimness of his task. Like the true Briton that he is, he considered it part of his duty to make light of his difficulties. But the holding of Mafeking was stern work. The Boers themselves never dreamed the defence would be seriously maintained, and in the early days of the siege they sent in a messenger under a flag of truce offering terms of surrender. Baden-Powell gave the messenger a sumptuous lunch, himself the most delightful of hosts, and sent him back with word to the accommodating Boers that he would be sure and let them know immediately he was ready to yield the town. And to Cronje's humanitarian plea that Baden-Powell should surrender in order to avoid further bloodshed, the Goal-Keeper made answer, one can see his eyes twinkling, 'Certainly, but when will the bloodshed begin?' A little later he got in with a still more irritating piece of irony, addressing a letter to the burghers asking them if they seriously thought that they could take the town by sitting down and looking at it.
But this was at a time when Baden-Powell, in common with the rest of us, believed that the triumphant British Army would soon be coming up to Mafeking, and he himself able to sally out and strike a crushing blow at the besieging force. Weeks passed and the hope died. The Boers cut off the water-supply, and, with contrary ideas of logic, thought that such an action would damp the spirits of Baden-Powell. But that thoughtful and resourceful commander had seen that all the old wells were cleaned, and well filled, so that Mafeking was as secure from a water-famine as it was from the entrance of the Boers. Besides this, Baden-Powell had constructed bomb-proof shelters everywhere, and a boy stood ready with bell-rope in hand to ring immediate warning of a shell's approach. Trenches were dug giving cover and leading from every portion of the town. So perfect indeed were Baden-Powell's defences that it was possible to walk entirely round the little town without being exposed to the Boer fire. Telephones, too, were established between the headquarter bomb-proofs of outlying posts and the headquarter bomb-proof where Baden-Powell and Lord Edward Cecil, D.S.O., laid their heads together and planned the town's defence. And to keep the enemy at a respectful distance, Baden-Powell continually sent out little forces to harass them and keep them in a state of nerves. The Matabele never knew when Impessa was coming, and the Boers could never lie down to sleep with the assurance that they would not be awakened by the rattle of British musketry and the dread 'Reveille' of cold steel. Here is one instance. Knowing that the Boers fear the bayonet more than rifle bullets, Baden-Powell determined upon a sortie in which his men should get within striking distance of the large army closing round the town. One night he sent fifty-three men with orders to use only the bayonet, and this insignificant force crept silently to the enemy's trenches in the darkness, and scattered six hundred Boers from their laager. So close to the town were the assaulted trenches of the enemy that the officer's sudden and thrilling 'Charge' rang out distinctly on the night to the ears of those anxiously waiting the result of the sortie in Mafeking. This gallant attack completely 'funked' the Boers, and at two o'clock in the morning, long after the little force had returned triumphantly to the town, they began another fusillade, firing furiously at nothing for a whole hour. Fight after fight ensued. Whenever the enemy occupied a position likely to inconvenience the town, Baden-Powell took arms against them, and drove them out. After several experiences of this kind the Boer lost his temper, and with it all sense of honour. It is difficult to write without unbridled contempt of their inhuman bombardment of the women and children's laager in the gallant little town which neither their valour nor cunning could reduce. Baden-Powell loves children, and few incidents in the siege of Mafeking could be more distressing to those who know the stout- hearted Defender than these cruel bombardments. His sorrow over the killed and wounded children was of the most poignant character. One of the officers wrote to his mother during these dark days, saying how the whole garrison was touched to the heart by seeing their Commander nursing terrified children in his arms, and soothing their little fears. If anything could have stirred that just and honest nature to unholy thoughts of vengeance it would have been the murder of these children; and I doubt not that he will hit the harder and the more relentlessly when he gets at close quarters with his enemy, fired by the thought of those mangled little bodies and the remembrance of their mothers' agony. And in addition to the murderous shells of the Boers, typhoid and malaria were at their fell work in the women's laager; the children's graveyard just outside the laager extended its sad bounds week by week, and the cheerfulness that marked the beginning of the siege died in men's hearts.
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The cheerfulness, but not the determination. Baden-Powell wrote home in December, after some two months of the siege, saying that they were all a little tired of it, but just as determined as ever never to submit. And in order to keep up the spirits of the garrison in the hour when it seemed to many Englishmen that Mafeking was to be another Khartoum and he a second Gordon, Baden-Powell began to plan all manner of entertainments for the amusement of the women and children. The special correspondent of the
