Grandad Williamson on short rations

On the fourth day of January 1900, the Boers made the only real attempt to take the town by assault.  Their main attack was against our positions on Wagon Hill to the south of the defence perimeter.  It was sustained for two days then they called it off.  They would know we were getting short of food by the condition of the sick men going down to the Intombi hospital.  We were contained so why throw a lot of good men away attacking the place, sooner or later the British would have to surrender or die of hunger.

By this time our rations were cut down to one biscuit three inches square and about one third of an inch thick, a quarter pound of boiled horse flesh, about 46 men shared an ounce of tea, 16 men to an ounce of sugar and a concoction we called “Chevral”, which was the water in which horse flesh had been boiled.  Often when it reached us the surface was covered in flies.  That was our daily ration and that was all we got.  There were a few vegetables for sale in the Town but we could not leave the defences.  We were not supposed to and we had no money as we had had no pay for months.  There was no tobacco or cigarettes and the lads who must smoke collected the leaves from the stunted bushes that grew around, they sun dried them and they called the result “Observation Twist”.

One of my comrades risked a Court Martial by going into the town, breaking into a shop and stealing a whitish floury stuff he took to be a mealy Meal.  He got back safely and we scouted around for material to make a fire.  We had left our mess tins at Dundee when we had to leave the town in a hurry, so that we made do with Bully tins.  So as a boiler we used one of these, mixed the stuff with water and waited for it to boil.  The robber stirred, but long before the water boiled the mixture had stiffened.  It was Plaster of Paris he had stolen.  We had all reckoned it was Mealy and had never thought to taste it.  The water we had to drink came out of the Klip River and it being the rainy season it was often the colour of clay.