midday
Then , suddenly , running figures of men came round the corner . Voices shouted , and houses and shops and saloons emptied themselves of their human contents . The news flew from kerb to kerb , and jumped from windows to windows , out of which women , European and coloured , thrust eager , questioning heads . The Cape Town train that had started at midday had returned to Gueldersdorp , having been held up by a force of armed and mounted Boers twenty miles down the line . And a London newspaper correspondent had handed in a cable at the post-office , and the operator 's instrument , after a futile click or so , had failed to work any more . The telegraphic wire was cut . Hostilities had commenced in earnest , and Gueldersdorp , severed from the South by this opening act of war , must find her salvation thenceforwards in the cool brains and steady nerves of the handful of defenders behind her sand-bags , when the hour of need should come .