. Besieged by the Boers; a diary of life and events in Kimberley during the siege . heroad over the railway near the station was madeinto a shelter by leaning timbers against thesides of it, putting steel plates next them, andthen banking up with sandbags and loose people who lived near the station tookrefuge under trenches in the station building,in the engine sheds, in the ashpits, and underthe engines, of which we had a dozen or morein Kimberley. Speaking of the railway reminds me that ashell struck one of the rails near the stationand knocked out a piece of rail twenty-twoinches
. Besieged by the Boers; a diary of life and events in Kimberley during the siege . heroad over the railway near the station was madeinto a shelter by leaning timbers against thesides of it, putting steel plates next them, andthen banking up with sandbags and loose people who lived near the station tookrefuge under trenches in the station building,in the engine sheds, in the ashpits, and underthe engines, of which we had a dozen or morein Kimberley. Speaking of the railway reminds me that ashell struck one of the rails near the stationand knocked out a piece of rail twenty-twoinches long, depositing it upon the roof of ahotel over one hundred yards away. All through the bombardment the people wholived near any of the culverts which carry therain-water off used to shelter there when shell-ing was going on, and many of those who livednear debris heaps made their own private ex-cavations. A wide drain quite ten feet deepruns around the public gardens, and many ofthe better-class inhabitants made shelters in thisby getting old railway or tram rails and roofing. THE RUSH FOR SHELTER 137 a part of the drain with them, piling loose earthon top. On the next day, Saturday, February ioth,wewere all quite depressed on account of Labramsdeath, and because we expected heavy shellingagain; but, to our relief, it did not come off, andwe had comparatively few of these unwelcomevisitors that day. A few came in between sixand nine in the morning, and then no more tillabout , but we had a few of the smallershells from guns in other parts. These, how-ever, we quite disregarded; after the big gunwe hardly minded the smaller ones at all; theyseemed just as if the Boers were spitting at us. Of course there were all sorts of reasonsgiven why the big gun rested so long—it hadburst, they were short of ammunition, etc. Thereal reason was that some of our men had gotinto a position about seventeen hundred yardsfrom it and made things too lively for the menworking it whene
Size: 1325px × 1885px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1900
