1899 - Diary of the siege of Mafeking by Edward Ross
Tuesday, 18 January
Shot and shell, in about the usual quantity, was again the order of the day.
Lippman’s second extremely narrow escape occurred this morning. He happened to be in his shop when a 94-pounder came crashing through the next room, bursting there and sending its pieces right through the building. The office was totally wrecked and the wall separating the office from the shop almost entirely demolished. Two Dutch ladies, mother and daughter, were in the shop and the latter was struck by a splinter in the fleshy part of the right arm, causing a very nasty wound, but not dangerous.
Although unable to see a yard in front of him and surrounded by smoke, vile fumes, falling debris, etc., and half stunned by the concussion, Lippman very pluckily carried the two women, for the moment more dead than alive, out of the shop through the back store and so out into the open air.
One of the shells this afternoon landed right on Stenson’s old and now disused dugout: it was a very insecure one and yet resisted the big shell and bursting same, [and] the pieces were carried a long way to the front. The roof of the dugout certainly caved in, but, it is considered, would not have done so if properly constructed. This make us feel a little more safe in our dugouts than heretofore.
Their usual night gun at about 8 o’clock struck at the back of the railway station. A piece of the shell blew a native’s head almost right off his body, of course killing him instantly. This was almost immediately followed by two heavy volleys from their Mauser rifles, but all the damage the latter did was perforations of iron roofs all over the town. They do about as much damage as a caterpillar on a cabbage leaf.
A native woman was badly injured by piece of shell about breakfasttime this morning.
The enemy, who have made Zeerust their base of operations for this district and the north, and down to Vryburg, have turned that village into almost a small city: they even have an arsenal there and are making their own shells; they are very rough cast but still very dangerous. I was able to see one seven-pounder, it having been brought in by a native and offered for sale. Somebody bought it and sent it into B.P.