TOPIC:

1900 - Mafeking siege day 179 (82%). Wepener siege day 1 (6%). Dalgety heavily attacked. General Gatacre superseded by General Chermside.
1902 - Boer peace delegates meet at Klerksdorp.

In Mafeking:

Runners from the north arrived with the intelligence that Smitheman had passed them well clear of the Boer line, so we hope he is safe. The big gun has been shelling all the morning, and some of her smaller brethren have taken it up this afternoon. Many conflicting rumours, but a force of many men and guns went south on Friday night. "We hope this portends the approach of our expected relief. It would be hard lines indeed, after all this dull work, not to finish the campaign in the Transvaal. The natives say the Boers are going to give us another severe doing to-morrow. The flags of truce exchange much chaff. The Boers say, " Why don't you come out and fight in the open? " and the answer is, " Come and drive us out." The other day the Boers said to our orderly that it was very brutal sending men who had never been to sea to St. Helena, besides what would they do there? "Whether he expected us to find picnic parties for them or not I do not know. I wish I were at St. Helena, one would have a chance of getting somewhere else from there. The orderly said there was plenty to do, but the Boer objected there were no horses for them to ride, and when the orderly said, " Let them ride the turtles," he was very wroth. Again, yesterday, the Boer volunteered that they, the Dutch, were knocking us about in the Free State. The orderly said, " The Free State, where is the Free State?" and the Boer said, "North of the Orange River." On the orderly's answering, " Ah ! You mean New England," the Boer seemed hurt, but they are pretty civil all the same and both sides continually ask after their various friends and get answers.

From the diary of 2nd Lt N K Charteris, Royal Scots.

Wepener:

We stood to arms and saddled up as usual at 4 o’clock and we had off saddled again and I had gone back to bed. Breakfast was being cooked and everything seemed quiet, when all of a sudden at about 6 o’clock a shell burst about 30 yards to the right of our camp. I jumped out of bed (we all slept in our clothes) and we started saddling up at once, during this another shell pitched just in front of our camp and a bit of shell went clean through one of our tents in which there were 4 men, but it did no damage. We struck camp and got our horses under cover of a big dam, and waited for orders. We gnawed some chops while we were waiting. In a few minutes orders came for us to occupy a ridge overlooking the Caledon River to the south, to reinforce the CMR. To reach this position we had to gallop about 1½ miles across the open. We went by sub sections (4 at a time). During our gallop the Boers had 2 maxims and a very heavy rifle fire on us. We dismounted behind a kopje and left our horses, and advanced on foot across another 200 years of open [ground], under a perfect hail of bullets, to the ridge we had to occupy. Hill was hit in the leg during this advance. We lay on this ridge all day, under a very hot fire. We had scarcely any cover (trenches had not been dug here).

Within a radius of 10 yards of where I was lying there were two men killed and 5 wounded. One of our men, Private King , was hit in the mouth and killed close to me. He was bringing up ammunition and was in the act of getting down on one knee behind a rock when he was killed. A sergeant of Driscoll’s Scouts was also killed within 3 yards of me. Two men lying next to me [were] wounded by [the] same bullet. A message came in from General Brabant by helio telling us to hold out as we should be relieved in 3 days.

Our casualties: killed: Privates King and McCormac . Wounded: Lieutenant C G Hill, Lance Sergeant Grey, Lance Corporal Forbes, Privates Triplow, Coyle.

Casualties in rest of force: 70.

The ambulance waggons did not finish taking away the dead and wounded until midnight. Private Thom , Royal Scots Mounted Infantry, showed great gallantry in carrying away a wounded man under a very heavy fire.

1900 - Diary of the siege of Mafeking by Edward Ross

Monday, 9 April

Big Ben opened fire at 6.15 a.m. sending in three shots. Nothing happened today. Absolutely no news.

F. Smitheman left last night to try and regain Plumer’s camp.

From the diary of Lance Corporal Luke Gormley, 1st Royal Scots, at Wepener

Apr 9th, 1900

The Boers started shelling our position at Jammer Berg Drift at daybreak, sending about six shells into our company tents. We got the order to saddle up at once and make for a donga about five hundred yards away so as to get our horses out of the shell fire. We had to wait here for orders from Col Dalgety who was in charge of the garrison. We went to our tents for coffee and bread with an occasional shell bursting to hurry us on. We partook of our breakfast in the donga not knowing when we might get bur next meal. Perhaps for a few of us, it would be our last. We had scarcely finished when we got the order to reinforce the Cape Rifles about a mile and a half in front of us on a kopje that had not yet been trenched. We got the order to advance in single file at about eight horse's lengths interval. Then we had to gallop up to a position under heavy fire of shot and shell for about three quarters of a mile. Here we dismounted and, leaving our horses behind the kopje, had to run on foot for a good half mile to reach the position occupied by the Cape Mounted Rifles. We were under a heavy rifle fire and our men were getting shot down in all directions. We managed to get up to the position at last and I had just lain down when a man of Driscoll's Scouts was shot through the chest on my right. The same bullet passing through him, wounded one of the Scots in the arm. The groans of the poor fellow who was shot through the chest were terrible. The only thing I could do for him was to give him a drink out of my water bottle and loosen his coat. The fire was too heavy for an ambulance to get up to the firing line. You could hear nothing but the yells and groans of our men who were getting struck in all directions. Those who had the misfortune to be wounded had to lie out under a hot sun through the day, with the whizzing of bullets and bursting of shells, and without a drop of water till darkness came to put a stop to their agony. One of our company had just reached the firing line with a box of ammunition and had put it down when he was struck in the mouth with an explosive bullet which killed him instantly. The Boers kept up a terrible rifle fire all day, but they did not manage to gain an inch of ground. Our casualties for the day are 130 out of a total force of 1200. We lost out of our party of fifty, two men killed and 7 wounded and one officer wounded. As soon as darkness came on, we buried the dead and there was many a sore heart among us as we laid them in their last resting place. As soon as we had done that, each man built himself a sconce. It was no easy task to dig out the earth and stones with our bayonets. But every man worked his hardest for we knew that as soon as daybreak came we would have the same bombardment of shot and shell to endure.