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Behind him were mules loaded with a further twenty rounds for him. The Khedivial soldiers had 120 rounds of Martini-Henry cartridges. To hark back: at 4.30 a.m., ere dawn had tinged the east, the Sirdar bade Colonel Broadwood, commanding the Egyptian cavalry, send out two squadrons to ascertain what the enemy was about.
They were smart men, clad in loose jerseys and knickerbockers, with sun-hats and bare legs, and they marched like soldiers. Cartridge-belts were over their left shoulders, and Martini-Henry rifles, carried muzzle foremost, on their right.
There was no mistaking the nature of the missile a regulation Martini-Henry "picket." About five hundred yards away a country-boat was anchored in midstream; and a jet of smoke drifting away from its bows in the still morning air showed me whence the delicate attention had come. Was ever a respectable gentleman in such an impasse?
All were congratulating themselves on a termination of the event, when at 10.30 the attack was renewed with vigour on the opposite side of the camp, occupied by the 38th Dogras. The enemy, who were largely armed with Martini-Henry rifles, crept up to within 100 yards of the trenches. These were only about eighteen inches high, but afforded sufficient cover to the soldiers.
Outside the town, on the north, south, and east, lay more than seven thousand Matabele, two thousand of whom were armed with Martini-Henry rifles, while the others possessed Lee-Metfords, elephant guns, Tower muskets, and blunderbusses, besides their own native assegais, knobkerries, and battle-axes.
As soon as the smoke began to rise, the tribesmen, who had waited, half a mile away, opened a dropping fire from Martini-Henry rifles on the cavalry. These, not wishing to engage, retired at a trot. They were followed up, but though the fire was well directed, the range was too great for accurate shooting and the bullets whizzed harmlessly overhead.
Nurses and dressers were running out into the grounds to listen and question and conjecture, the barely reclaimed veld beyond the palings was black with hurrying, shouting men, bandoliered, and carrying guns of every kind and calibre, from the venerable gaspipe of the native and the aged but still useful Martini-Henry of the citizen, to the Lee-Metford repeating-carbine, and the German magazine rifle of latest delivery to the troops of Imperial Majesty at Berlin.
One German, armed with a Martini-Henry, found himself shunned by all his comrades on account of his cartridges not containing smokeless powder, and was obliged to entrench himself on his own at some distance from the rest.
One of the men attacked by the dervish was a native non-commissioned officer. He had followed the others out. Dropping upon his knee he aimed at the dervish, but his Martini-Henry missed fire. He fired again and missed, then, the dervish being very near him, ran for the zereba.
Stead's assertion about Mafeking, I communicated with General Baden-Powell, the gentleman who is most qualified to speak as to what occurred there, and his answer lies before me: 'We had no expanding bullets in our supply at Mafeking, unless you call the ordinary Martini-Henry an expanding bullet.
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