Knowing that the Boers fear the
bayonet more than rifle bullets, Baden-Powell determined upon a sortie
in which his men should get within striking distance of the large army
closing round the town. One night he sent fifty-three men with orders
to use only the bayonet, and this insignificant force crept silently
to the enemy's trenches in the darkness, and scattered six hundred
Boers from their laager. So close to the town were the assaulted
trenches of the enemy that the officer's sudden and thrilling
"Charge" rang out distinctly on the night to the ears of those
anxiously waiting the result of the sortie in Mafeking. This gallant
attack completely "funked" the Boers, and at two o'clock in the
morning, long after the little force had returned triumphantly to the
town, they began another fusillade, firing furiously at nothing for a
whole hour. Fight after fight ensued. Whenever the enemy occupied a
position likely to inconvenience the town, Baden-Powell took arms
against them, and drove them out. After several experiences of this
kind the Boer lost his temper, and with it all sense of honour. It is
difficult to write without unbridled contempt of their inhuman
bombardment of the women and children's laager in the gallant little
town which neither their valour nor cunning could reduce. Baden-Powell
loves children, and few incidents in the siege of Mafeking could be
more distressing to those who know the stout-hearted Defender than
these cruel bombardments. His sorrow over the killed and wounded
children was of the most poignant character. One of the officers wrote
to his mother during these dark days, saying how the whole garrison
was touched to the heart by seeing their Commander nursing terrified
children in his arms, and soothing their little fears. If anything
could have stirred that just and honest nature to unholy thoughts of
vengeance it would have been the murder of these children; and I doubt
not that he will hit the harder and the more relentlessly when he gets
at close quarters with his enemy, fired by the thought of those
mangled little bodies and the remembrance of their mothers' agony. And
in addition to the murderous shells of the Boers, typhoid and malaria
were at their fell work in the women's laager; the children's
graveyard just outside the laager extended its sad bounds week by
week, and the cheerfulness that marked the beginning of the siege died
in men's hearts.

[Illustration: Goal-Keeper
By