The smallest piece of one of these fragments was sufficient
to kill a man, and scarcely anyone wounded with a shell ever seemed to
survive, the wounds being nearly always terribly severe, and their
poison occasioning gangrene to set in. There were many comic as well as
tragic incidents connected with the shells of the big gun. A monkey
belonging to the post-office, who generally spent the day on the top of
a pole to which he was chained, would, on hearing the alarm-bell,
rapidly descend from his perch, and, in imitation of the human beings
whom he saw taking shelter, quickly pop under a large empty biscuit-tin.
Dogs also played a great part in the siege. One, belonging to the
Base-Commandant, was wounded no less than three times; a rough Irish
terrier accompanied the Protectorate Regiment in all its engagements;
and a third amused itself by running after the small Maxim shells,
barking loudly, and trying to retrieve pieces. On the other hand, the
Resident Commissioner's dog was a prudent animal, and whenever she heard
the alarm-bell, she would leave even her dinner half eaten, and bolt
down her master's bomb-proof. On one occasion I remember being amused at
seeing a nigger, working on the opposite side of the road, hold up a
spade over his head like an umbrella as the missile came flashing by,
while a fellow-workman crawled under a large tarpaulin that was
stretched on the ground.
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