Sir
It is understood that you have armed Bastards, Fingoes and Baralongs against us - in this you have committed an enormous act of wickedness...reconsider the matter, even if it cost you the loss of Mafeking... disarm your blacks and thereby act the part of a white man in a white man's war.
Signed
General Cronje 29th October 1899
General Cronje's orders are clear; take Mafeking and drive the British out of Africa but Colonel Baden-Powell, Mafeking's commanding officer, is no ordinary soldier and his defence of the town will be no ordinary fight. Themba Jabulani is a victim of a white man's war. A war where there are strange rules. A war where innocents will be sacrificed and heroes will be made. Jabulani is one of the innocents, struggling to survive with his wife Ntombi and young child. Cronje's letter signals the start of a siege that will last seven months. A strange gentleman's siege punctuated by truces, cricket matches and ferocious fighting.
