ose quarters they were obliged to keep
was beginning to tell, none worked harder than Captain Ronald Vernon. I
remember returning to my quarters, after the festivity, with this
officer, and his telling me, in strict confidence, with eager
anticipation, of a sortie that was to be made on the morrow, with the
object of obtaining possession of the Boer gun at Game Tree Fort, the
fire from which had lately been very disastrous to life and property in
the town. He was fated in this very action to meet his death, and
afterwards I vividly recalled our conversation, and reflected how
bitterly disappointed he would have been had anything occurred to
prevent his taking part in it. The next day, Boxing Day, I shall ever
remember as being, figuratively speaking, as black and dismal as night.
I was roused at 4.30 a.m. by loud cannonading. Remembering Captain
Vernon's words, I telephoned to Headquarters to ask if the Colonel and
Staff were there. They had all left at 2.30 a.m., so I knew the
projected action was in progress. At five o'clock the firing was
continuous, and the boom of our wretched little guns was mingled with
the rattle of Boer musketry. Every moment it grew lighter--a beautiful
morning, cool and bright, with a gentle breeze.

In Mr. Wiel's service was a waiter named Mitchell, a Cockney to the
backbone, and a great character in his way. What had brought him to
South Africa, or how he came to be in Mafeking, I never discovered; but
he was a cheerful individual, absolutely fearless of shells and bullets.
That morning I began to get very anxious, and Mitchell was also
pessimistic. He mounted to the roof to watch the progress of the fight,
and ran down from time to time with anything but reassuring pieces of
intelligence, asking me at intervals, when the firing was specially
fierce: "Are you scared, lady?" At length he reported that our men were
falling back, and that the ambulances could now be seen at work. With
marvellous courage and coolness, the soldiers had advanced absolutely to
under the walls of the Boer fort, and had found the latter 8 feet high,
with three tiers of loopholes. There it was that three
officers--Captains Vernon, Paton, and Sandford--were shot down, Captain
Fitzclarence having been previously wounded in the leg, and left on the
veldt calling to his men not to mind him, but to go on, which order they
carried out, nothing daunted by the hail of bullets and the loss of
their officers. Thanks to the mar