A Rain of Lead (First Boer War) - Ian Bennett

***British publication, rare to find in South Africa***

First major book about the bitter siege of Potchefstroom
Based on eyewitness reports and contemporary documents
A dramatic story of endurance under terrible conditions

A Rain of Lead is the first full-length book about the dramatic 95-day siege of Potchefstroom, which helped to shape a century of South African history. At the end of 1880, some 200 British soldiers and a handful of civilians began the defence of a makeshift fort the size of a tennis court.

Most of these men had fought in the Zulu War: some had escaped from Isandlwana, others had defended at Rorkes Drift and been at Ulundi. Although heavily outnumbered, and suffering from lack of food, tremendous heat, the wettest summer for 30 years and no shelter save a few bullet-holed leaking tents, they were to hold out under constant fire for 95 days. When finally forced by starvation to surrender, with more than one third of the garrison killed, wounded or dead of disease, one of the officers remarked We can scarcely under-stand the perfect peace which has so suddenly fallen on us after three months rain of lead.

The place was Potchefstroom, the old Boer capital of the Transvaal, which had been annexed and occupied by the British in 1877. The siege marked the start of the first Anglo-Boer War.