Every moment it grew lighter--a beautiful
morning, cool and bright, with a gentle breeze.
In Mr. Wiel's service was a waiter named Mitchell, a Cockney to the
backbone, and a great character in his way. What had brought him to
South Africa, or how he came to be in Mafeking, I never discovered; but
he was a cheerful individual, absolutely fearless of shells and bullets.
That morning I began to get very anxious, and Mitchell was also
pessimistic. He mounted to the roof to watch the progress of the fight,
and ran down from time to time with anything but reassuring pieces of
intelligence, asking me at intervals, when the firing was specially
fierce: "Are you scared, lady?" At length he reported that our men were
falling back, and that the ambulances could now be seen at work. With
marvellous courage and coolness, the soldiers had advanced absolutely to
under the walls of the Boer fort, and had found the latter 8 feet high,
with three tiers of loopholes. There it was that three
officers--Captains Vernon, Paton, and Sandford--were shot down, Captain
Fitzclarence having been previously wounded in the leg, and left on the
veldt calling to his men not to mind him, but to go on, which order they
carried out, nothing daunted by the hail of bullets and the loss of
their officers. Thanks to the marvellous information the Boers
constantly received during the siege, no doubt from the numerous Dutch
spies which were known to be in the town, Game Tree Fort had been
mysteriously strengthened in the night; and, what was still more
significant, the gun had not only been removed, but General Snyman and
Commandment Botha were both on the scene with reinforcements shortly
after our attack commenced, although the Boer Headquarter camp was fully
three miles away.
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