. Besieged by the Boers : a diary of life and events in Kimberly during the siege. es were little, if any,safer than the open, but somehow you feltsafer inside than out. Several drivers chuckedup their jobs and hooked it, but mine stuckto his work like a brick and never flinchedor hesitated wherever he had to go, thoughhe admitted he was often badly scared. Thatwas precisely my feeling. I was badly scared,but the work had to be done, and I felt thatif a shell were destined to hit me, it woulddo so whether I were in or out, and whetherin a shelter or not, and so, though I didnot try to get hit,
. Besieged by the Boers : a diary of life and events in Kimberly during the siege. es were little, if any,safer than the open, but somehow you feltsafer inside than out. Several drivers chuckedup their jobs and hooked it, but mine stuckto his work like a brick and never flinchedor hesitated wherever he had to go, thoughhe admitted he was often badly scared. Thatwas precisely my feeling. I was badly scared,but the work had to be done, and I felt thatif a shell were destined to hit me, it woulddo so whether I were in or out, and whetherin a shelter or not, and so, though I didnot try to get hit, I went about my work asusual, and never missed a single ofiice houror visiting a single patient on account ofthe shells. And I think all the doctors didthe same. You bet my driver lost nothingby sticking to his post. When we were re-lieved, I gave him ten pounds, and our Zuluboy five pounds, for he had come and donehis work just the same as usual. It was) on this day (February 9th) that theDe Beers people began to put up my splinter-proof shelter. It was put in the passage way. ZCbe IRusb tot Sbelter 159 between the dining-room and the storeroom,and the entrance to it was just outside theback door of the house proper. If you lookat the plan of the house, you will see exactlywhere it was. The passage is nearly sevenfeet wide, and so there was plenty of room. First of all strong steel plates five-eighthsof an inch thick were put up against thewall of the dining-room, then a frameworkof huge mine props twelve inches thick wasput up ; the roof was made of similar timbers,and was seven feet high, and on the top ofthese another steel plate was laid. The shells could not come from the kitchenside at all, so we just left that wall as it the two sides were built up with sacksfilled with earth taken out of the garden andlaid endways, so that a shell or splinter wouldhave to come through quite two feet of earthbefore getting at us. We were late beginningour fort, so nearly all t
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