The doctors and ambulance men who went out after the brief cavalry action on Friday morning report they were fired on while carrying the dead and wounded in the dhoolies. The Boers retaliate with a similar charge against us in Modder River. Unhappily, there can be no doubt that one of our doctors was heavily fired on whilst dressing a man's wounds on the field.

December 11, 1899.

Soon after two in the night I heard rifle-firing, then two explosions, and heavier rifle-firing again, apparently two or three miles away. It was too dark to see anything, even from the top of the hill, but in the morning I found we had destroyed another gun—the 4.7 in. howitzer on Surprise Hill. For weeks past it had been one of the most troublesome guns of the thirty-two that surround us. It had a long range and accurate aim. Its position commanded Observation Hill, part of the Newcastle road, Cove Hill, and Leicester Post, the whole of the old camp and all the line of country away to Range Post and beyond. It was this gun that shelled the 18th Hussars out of their camp and continually harassed the Irish Fusiliers. It was constantly dropping shells into the 69th Battery and on the K.R.R. at King's Post. Surprise Hill is a square-topped kopje, from 500 feet to 600 feet high, between Thornhill's Kopje and Nicholson's Nek. It overlooks Bell's Spruit and the scene of "Mournful Monday's" worst disaster. From Leicester Post, where two guns were always kept turned on it, the distance is 4,100 yards—just the full range of our field guns. From Observation Hill it is hardly 2,500 yards. The destruction of its gun was therefore of the highest importance.

At ten o'clock last night four companies of the 2nd Rifle Brigade started from their camp on Leicester Post, with six sappers, under Mr. Digby Jones, and five gunners under Major Wing, of the 69th Battery. The whole was commanded by Colonel Metcalfe of the battalion. They marched across the fairly open grassland toward Observation Hill, and there halted because the half-moon was too bright. About midnight they again advanced, as the moon was far down in the west. They marched in fours towards the foot of the hill, but had to cross the Harrismith Railway two deep through a gap where the wire fences were cut with nippers. One deep donga and a shallower had to be crossed as well. At the foot of the hill two companies were left, extended in a wedge shape, the apex pointing up the hill. The remaining two companies began the ascent. The front of the hill is steep and covered with boulders, but is greener than most South African hills. About half-way up half a company was left in support. The small assaulting party then climbed up in extended line. Not a word was spoken, and the Boers gave no sign till our men were within twenty yards of the top. Then a sentry cried, "Who's there? Who's there?" in English, and fired. Our men fixed swords and charged to the top with a splendid cheer. They made straight for the sangar and formed in a circle round it, firing outwards without visible target. To their dismay they found the gun-pit empty. The gun had been removed perhaps for security, perhaps for the Sabbath rest. But it was soon discovered a few yards off, and the sappers set to work with their gun-cotton. Meantime a party was sent to the corner of the hill on the left to clear out a little camp, where the Boer gunners slept and had their meals under a few little trees. They fired into it, and then carried everything away, some of the men bringing off some fine blankets, which they are very proud of this morning. The great-coats were in such a disgusting condition that the soldiers had to leave them.

The fuse was long in going off. Some say the first fuse failed, some that it was very slow. Anyhow, the party was kept waiting on the hill-top almost half an hour, when the whole thing ought to have been done in a quarter. Those extra fifteen minutes cost many lives. At last the shock of the explosion came. Two great holes were made in the gun's rifling near the muzzle, and the breech was blown clean out, the screw being destroyed. Major Wing secured the sight, the sponge, and an old wideawake, which the gunner used always to wave to him very politely just before he fired. Some say there was a second explosion, and I heard it myself, but it may have been a Boer gun which threw one round of shrapnel high over the hill, the bullets pattering down harmlessly, and only making a blue bruise when they hit. As soon as the sappers and gunners had made sure the gun was destroyed, the order to retire was given, and the line began climbing down in the darkness. The half company in support was taken up, the two companies at the foot were reached by some, when a heavy fire flashed out of the darkness on both sides. The Boers, evidently by a preconcerted scheme, were crowding in from Thornhill's farm on our left—Mr. Thornhill, by the way, was acting as our guide—and from Bell's farm on our right. They came creeping along the dongas, right into the midst of our men, as well as cutting off retreat. Then it was that we wanted that quarter of an hour lost by the fuse. The men hastily formed up into their four companies and began the retirement in succession. Each company had simply to fight its way through with the sword-bayonet. They did not fire much, chiefly for fear of hitting each other, which unfortunately happened in some cases. The Boers took less precaution, and kept up a tremendous fire from both flanks, many of the bullets probably hitting their own men. Under shelter of the dongas some got right among our companies and fired from a few yards' distance.

Then came the horror of a war between two nations familiar with the same language. "Second R.B.! Second R.B.!" shouted our fellows as a watchword and rallying-cry. "Second R.B.!" shouted every Boer who was challenged or came into danger. "B Company here!" cried an officer. "B Company here!" came the echo from the Dutch. "Where's Captain Paley?" asked a private. "Where's Captain Paley?" the question passed from Boer to Boer. In the darkness it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe. The only way was to stoop down till you saw the edge of a broad-brimmed hat. Then you drove your bayonet through the man, if he did not shoot you first. Many a poor fellow was shot down by some invisible figure who was talking to him in English and was taken for a friend. One Boer fired upon a private at two or three yards—and missed him! The private sprang upon him. "I surrender! I surrender!" cried the Boer, throwing down his rifle. "So do I," cried the private, and plunged his bayonet through the man's stomach and out at his back.

One by one the companies cut their way into the open ground by the railway, and to Observation Hill, where the enemy dare not pursue. By half-past three a.m. the greater part were back at Leicester Post again. It was a triumph, even for the Rifle Brigade: as fine and gallant an achievement as could be done. But the cost was heavy.

Eleven were dead, including one or perhaps two officers. Six are prisoners. Forty-three are wounded, some severely. The ambulance was out all the morning bringing them in. Again they complained that the Boers fired on them and wanted to keep them prisoners. Nothing has so embittered our troops against the enemy as this continual firing on the wounded and hospitals. It was sad in any case to see the stretchers coming home this morning. Meeting a covered dhoolie, I asked the bearers who was in it. "Captain Paley," they said, and put him down for water. He had been reported missing. In fact, he had stayed behind to look after some of his men who were down or lost. He is known for his excellent government of a district in Crete. I gave him the water. He recognised me at once and was conscious, but his singularly blue eyes looked out of a deadly yellow and bloodless face, and his hands seemed to have the touch of death on them. When I said I was sorry, he answered, "But we got the gun." He was shot through the chest, though, as he pointed out, he was not spitting blood. Another bullet had entered the left hip and passed out, breaking the right hip-bone. That is the dangerous wound. He said he did not feel much pain.

The wounded were taken down to the tents set up in the ravine of the Port Road between the Headquarters and the old camp. That is the main hospital (11th and 18th) since the wounded were shifted out of the Town Hall, because the Boers shelled it so persistently. Since the Geneva flag was removed from the hall's turret not a single shell has been fired near the building. The ravine—"kloof" is the word here, like "cleft"—is fairly safe from shells, though the Bulwan gun has done its best to get among the tents ever since spies reported the removal.

It is fully exposed to those terrible dust storms which I described in an earlier letter. In the afternoon we had one of the worst I have seen. The sand and dust and dry filth, gathered up by the hot west wind from the plain of the old camp, swept in a continuous yellow cloud along the road and down into the ravine. It blotted out the sun, it blinded horses and men, it covered the wounded with a thick layer. I have described its horrible effects before. Imagine what it is like to have a hospital under such conditions, practically unsheltered—to extract bullets, to staunch blood, to amputate. One admires the Boers as a race fighting for their freedom, soon to be overthrown on behalf of a mongrel pack of speculators and other scoundrels. But I did not like them any better when I saw our wounded in the dust-storm to-day, and remembered why they were there.

In the afternoon a white woman was killed by a shell as she was washing clothes in the river. She is the first woman actually killed, though others have died from premature child birth. I don't know which gun killed her, but parts of the town and river hitherto safe were to-day exposed to fire from the 6 in. gun which was removed from Middle Hill a few days ago, and is now set up on Thornhill's farm, due west of the town. It commands a very wide district—the old camp, the Long Valley which the Maritzburg road crosses, the Great Plain behind Bluebank, and most of our western positions. It began firing early in the morning and continued at intervals all day. For an hour or two people were surprised at seeing a free balloon sailing away towards Bulwan. It turned out to be one of Captain Heath's dummies, which had got away. He tells me it will be entirely useless to the enemy in any case.

December 12, 1899.

I was so overcome with fever that again my aspect of things was not quite straight. After dawn the Bulwan gun shelled the Star bakery, close to my cottage, and the stones and earth splashing on my roof woke me up too early. Another cottage was wrecked. The heat was intense, but the sun so splendid that I have hopes my heliograph message got through at last. None have gone yet, but I took up my sixth version in faith to the signal station near the Convent. On inquiry about Captain Paley I found he had been sent down to Intombi Camp with other serious cases, but the doctors think he has a chance. Lieut. Bond, who has a similar wound, went with him. Lieut. Fergusson, who died, had four bad wounds, three from bullets and one from a small shell of the automatic "pom-pom," which shattered his thigh. The rest of the day was a delirium of fever till the evening, when the wind suddenly changed to east, and it became cool and then bitterly cold. At half-past eight the proposed Flying Column, which is to co-operate with the relieving force, had a kind of dress rehearsal, all turning out with field equipment and transport for three days' rations. The Irish Fusiliers under Major Churcher formed the head of the column at Range Post, a body of Natal Volunteers coming next, followed by the Gordons. I waited at Range Post in the eager and refreshing wind till the column gradually dissolved into its camps, and all was still. By eleven the rehearsal was over and I rode back to my end of the town. To-night the civilians of the Town Guard went on picket by the river, and bore their trials boldly, though one of them got a crick in the neck.

December 13, 1899.

The early part of the day was distinguished by a violent fire from the big gun of Bulwan upon the centre of the town and the riverside camps. "Lady Anne" answered, for she has not yet been removed to her destined station on Waggon Hill. In the intervals of their fire we could distinctly hear big guns far away near Colenso and the Tugela River. They were chiefly English guns, for the explosion followed directly on the report, proving they were fired towards us. The firing stopped about 10 a.m.

All morning our two howitzers, which have been brought down from Waggon Hill, pounded away at their old enemy, the 6 in. gun now placed on Telegraph Hill as I described. They are close down by the Klip River, west of the old camp. Their object is to drive the gun away as they drove him before, and certainly they gave him little rest. He had hardly a chance of returning the fire; but when he had his shot was terribly effective, coming right into the top of our earthworks. Equally interesting was the behaviour of two Boers who crept down from Thornhill's farm among the rocks and began firing into our right rear. I detected them by the little puffs of white smoke, for both had Martini's. But no one took the trouble to shoot them, though they harassed our gunners. If there had been 50 instead of two they might have driven out our handful of men and tumbled the guns into the river. For we had no support nearer than the steep top of King's Post. Happily Boers do not do such things.

A Kaffir brought in a newspaper only two days old. It said Gatacre had suffered a reverse on the Free State frontier. There was nothing about the German Emperor, and no football news.

In the late afternoon I rode up to the Manchesters' lines on Caesar's Camp, our nearest point to Colenso. But they knew no more than the rest of us, except that an officer had counted the full tale of guns fired in the morning—137. The view on all sides was as varied and full of growing association as usual, but had no special interest to-day, and I hurried back to inquire again after Mr. George Steevens, who is down with fever, to every one's regret.

December 14, 1899.

After the high hopes of the last few days we seem to be falling back, and to get no nearer to the end. Very little firing was heard from Colenso. The Bulwan gun gave us his morning salute of ten big shells in various parts of the town. They made some troublesome pits in the roads, and one destroyed a house, but nobody was killed.

The howitzers and the Telegraph Hill Gun pounded away at each other without much effect. Sickness is now our worst enemy. Next to sickness comes want of forage for the horses. The sick still average thirty a day, and there were 320 cases of enteric at Intombi Camp last night. Mr. Steevens has it, and his friends were busy all morning, moving him to better quarters. Major Henderson is about again. The Roentgen Rays did not discover the bicycle shot in his leg, and the doctors have decided to leave it there.

It was disappointing to hear that the Kaffir runner I sent with an account of the night attack on Surprise Hill had been captured by the Boers and robbed of his papers. I had hopes of that boy; he wore no trousers. But it is perhaps unsafe to judge character from dress alone. This runner business is heart-breaking. I tried to make up by getting another short heliogram through, but the sun was uncertain, and the receivers on the distant mountain sulky and wayward. They showed one faint glimmer of intelligence, and then all was dark again.

In the heat of the day a four-wheeled hooded cart drove from the Boer lines under a white flag bringing a letter for the General. The envoy was a Dutchman from Holland. He was met outside our lines by Lieutenant Fanshawe, of the 19th Hussars, who conversed with him for about two hours, till the answer returned. Seated under the shade of the cart, he enjoyed the enemy's hospitality in brandy and soda, biltong, and Boer biscuit. "But for that white rag," said the Dutchman, "we two would be trying to kill each other. Very absurd!" He went on to repeat how much the Boers admired the exploits of the night attacks. "If you had gone for the other guns that first night, you would have got them all." He said the gunners on Gun Hill were all condemned to death. He examined the horse and its accoutrements, thinking them all very pretty, but maintaining the day for cavalry was gone. He was perfectly intimate with the names and character of all the battalions here. Of the Boer army he said it contained all nationalities down to Turks and Jews. He had no doubt of their ultimate success, and looked forward to Christmas dinner in Ladysmith. What we regard as our victories, he spoke of as our defeats. Even Elands Laagte he thought unsuccessful. Finally, after all compliments, he drove away, bearing a private letter from Mr. Fanshawe to be posted through Delagoa Bay and Amsterdam.

December 15, 1899.

In my own mind I had always fixed to-day as the beginning of our deliverance from this grotesque situation. It may be so still. Very heavy firing was heard down Colenso way from dawn till noon. Colonel Downing, commanding the artillery, said some of it was our field-guns, and it seemed nearer than two days ago.

The Bulwan gun gave us his customary serenade from heaven's gate. He did rather more damage than usual, wrecking two nice houses just below my cottage. One was a boarding house full of young railway assistants, who had narrow escapes. The brother gun on Telegraph Hill was also very active, not being so well suppressed by our howitzers as before. When I was waiting at Colonel Rhodes' cottage by the river, it dropped a shell clear over Pavilion Hill close beside it. Otherwise the Boer guns behaved with some modesty and discretion.

In the morning I rode up to Waggon Hill, and found that "Lady Anne" had at last arrived there, and was already in position. She was hauled up in the night in three pieces, each drawn by two span of oxen. Some thirty yards in front of her, in an emplacement of its own, stands the 12lb. naval gun which has been in that neighbourhood for some days. Both are carefully concealed, even the muzzles being covered up with earth and stones. They both command the approach to the town across the Long Valley by the Maritzburg road, as well as Bluebank or Rifleman's Ridge beyond, and Telegraph Hill beyond that.

While I was on the hill I saw one mounted and four dismounted Boers capture five of our horses which had been allowed to stray in grazing.

In the afternoon a South African thunderstorm swept over us. In a few minutes the dry gully where the main hospital tents are placed, as I described, became a deep torrent of filth. The tents were three feet deep in water, washing over the sick. "Sure it's hopeless, hopeless!" cried unwearying Major Donegan, the medical officer in charge. "I've just seen me two orderlies swimmin' away down-stream." The sick, wet and filthy as they were, had to be hurried away in dhoolies to the chapels and churches again. They will probably be safe there as long as the Geneva flag is not hoisted.

December 16, 1899.

This is Dingaan's Day, the great national festival of the Boers. It celebrates the terrible battle on the Blood River, sixty-one years ago, when Andreas Pretorius slaughtered the Zulus in revenge for their massacre of the Dutch at Weenen, or Lamentation. In honour of the occasion, the Boers began their battle earlier than usual. Before sunrise "Puffing Billy" of Bulwan exploded five 96lb. shells within fifty yards of my humble cottage, disturbing my morning sleep after a night of fever. I suppose he was aiming at the bakery again, but he killed nobody and only destroyed an outbuilding. Farther down the town unhappily he killed three privates. He also sent another shell into the Town Hall, and blew Captain Valentine's horse's head away, as the poor creature was enjoying his breakfast. After seven o'clock hardly a gun was fired all day. Opinion was divided whether the Boers were keeping holiday for that battle long ago, or were burying their dead after Buller's cannonade of yesterday. But raging fever made me quite indifferent to this and all other interests.



CHAPTER XIV

THE SEASON OF PEACE AND GOODWILL

Sunday, December 17, 1899.

We are sick of the siege. Enteric and dysentery are steadily increasing. Food for men and horses is short and nasty. Ammunition must be used with care. The longing for the English mail has almost become a disease. Only two days more, we thought, or perhaps we could just stick it out for another week. Now we are thrown back into vague uncertainty, and seem no nearer to the end.

All the correspondents were summoned at noon to the Intelligence Office. That the Intelligence should tell us anything at all was so unprecedented that we felt the occasion was solemn. Major Altham then read out the General Order, briefly stating that General Buller had failed in "his first attack at Colenso," and we could not be relieved as soon as was expected. All details were refused. We naturally presume the situation is worse than represented. Each of us was allowed to send a brief heliogram, balloting for turn. Then we came away. We were told it was our duty to keep the town cheerful.

The suffering among the poor who had no stores of their own to fall back upon is getting serious. Bread and meat are supplied in rations at a fair and steady price. Colonel Ward and Colonel Stoneman have seen to that, and as far as possible they check the rapacity of the Colonial contractor. But hundreds have no money left at all. They receive Government rations on a mere promise to pay. Outside rations, prices are running up to absurdity. Chickens and most nice things are not to be obtained. But in the market last week eggs were half a guinea a dozen, potatoes 1s. 6d. a pound, carrots 5s., candles 1s. each, a tin of milk 6s., cigarettes 5s. a dozen. Nothing can be bought to drink, except lemonade and soda-water, made with enteric germs. The Irishman drinks the rinsings of his old whisky bottles. One man gave L5 yesterday for a bottle of whisky, but then he was a contractor, and our necessity is his opportunity. Of our necessity the Colonial storekeepers and dealers of all kinds are making their utmost. Having spent their lives hitherto in "besting" every one on a small scale, they are now besting the British nation on the large. Happily their profit is not so easily made now as in the old days of the Zulu war, when a waggon-load of food would be sold three times over on the way to the front and never reached the troops at all in the end. A few days ago one contractor thought the Army would have to raise its price for mealies (maize) to 30s. a sack. He at once bought up all the mealies in the town at 28s., only to discover that the army price was 25s. So, under the beneficent influence of martial law he was compelled to sell at that price, and made a fine loss. The troops received this morning's heavy news with cheerful stoicism; not a single complaint, only tender regrets about the whisky and Christmas pudding we shall have to do without.

December 18, 1899.

How is one to treat an indeterminate situation? The siege is already too long for modern literature. It was all very well when we thought it must end by Christmas at the furthest. But since last Sunday we are thrown back into the infinite, and can fix no limit on which hope can build even a rainbow. So now the only way to make this account of our queer position readable will be to dwell entirely in the glaring events of adventure or bloodshed, and let the flat days slide, though the sadness and absurdity of any one of them would fill a paper.

We have had such luck in escaping shells that we grow careless. The Bulwan gun began his random fire, as usual, before breakfast. He threw about fifteen shells, but most of us are quite indifferent to the 96lb. explosive thunder-bolts dropping around us. Indeed, fourteen of them did little harm. But just one happened to drop in the Natal Carbineer lines while the horses were being groomed. Two men were killed outright and three mortally wounded. A sapper was killed 200 yards away. Three others were wounded. Eleven horses were either killed or hopelessly disabled. All from one chance shell, while fourteen hit nobody! One man had both legs cut clean off, and for a time continued conscious and happy. Five separate human legs lay on the ground, not to speak of horses' legs. The shell burst on striking a horse, they say (it was shrapnel), and threw forwards. While the Carbineers were carrying away one of their dead another shell burst close by. They rightly dropped the body and lay flat. The only fragment which struck at all almost cut the dead man in half. Another shell later in the day killed a Kaffir woman and her husband in a back garden off the main street. Several women have died from premature childbirth owing to shock.

Most of my day was again spent in trying to get a Kaffir runner for a telegram, but none would go. My last two had failed. All are getting frightened. In the evening I rode out to Waggon Hill and found "Lady Anne" and the 12lb. naval gun had gone back to their old homes. They are not wanted to keep open the approach for Buller now, and perhaps Captain Lambton was afraid the position might be rushed.

December 19, 1899.

Another black day. Details of Buller's defeat at Colenso began to leak out and discouraged us all. It would be much better if the truth about any disaster, no matter how serious, were officially published. Now every one is uncertain and apprehensive. We waste hours in questions and speculations. To-day there was something like despair throughout the camp. The Boers are putting up new guns on Gun Hill in place of those we destroyed. Through a telescope at the Heliograph Station I watched the men working hard at the sangar. Two on the face of the hill were evidently making a wire entanglement. On Pepworth Hill the sappers think they are putting up one of the 8.7 in. guns, four of which the Boers are known to have ordered, though it is not certain whether they received them. They throw a 287lb. shell. We are all beginning to feel the pinch of hunger. Bit by bit every little luxury we had stored up has disappeared. Nothing to eat or drink is now left in any of the shops; only a little twist tobacco.

What is even worse, the naval guns have too little ammunition to answer the enemy's fire; so that the Boers can shell us at ease and draw in nearer when they like. The sickness increases terribly. Major Donegan sent out thirty-six cases of enteric to Intombi Camp from the divisional troops' hospital alone. Probably over fifty went in all. Everything now depends on Buller's winning a great victory. It seems incredible that two British armies should be within twenty miles of each other and powerless to move.

I cannot induce a Kaffir runner to start now. Even the Intelligence Officer cannot do it. The heliograph has failed me, too. Sunday's message has not gone, and this afternoon was clouded with storms and rain. The temperature fell 30 deg.. Yesterday it was 102 deg.; the day before 106 deg. in the shade.

December 20, 1899.

From dawn till about seven the mutter of distant guns was heard near Colenso. But no news came through, for the sky was clouded nearly all day long. The new 4.7 in. howitzer which the Boers have put up on Surprise Hill opened fire in the morning, and will be as dangerous as its predecessor which we blew up. From every point of the compass it shelled hard nearly all day. I connect this feverish activity with the apparition of a chaise and four seen driving round the Boer outposts, and to-day quite visible on the Bulwan. Four outriders accompany it, and queer little flags are set up where it halts. Can the black-coated old gentleman inside be Oom Paul himself? It is significant that the big gun of Bulwan did some extraordinary shooting during the day. It threw one shell right into the old camp; another sheer over the Irish at Range Post; both were aimed at nothing but simply displayed the gun's full range; another pointed out the position of the Naval battery, and whilst I was at lunch in the town, another whizzed past and carried away one side of the Town Hall turret. I envy the gunner's feelings, though for the moment I thought he had killed my horse at the door. The Town Hall is now really picturesque, just the sort of ruin visitors will expect to see after a bombardment. With a little tittifying it will be worth thousands to the Colonials.



The day was cool and cloudy; fair shelling weather, but bad for heliographs. So my Christmas message is still delayed. A certain lieutenant (whom I know, but may not name) went out under flag of truce with a letter to the Boer General, and was admitted even into Schalk Burger's tent. The Boer gave him some details of Buller's disaster last Friday, and of the loss of the ten guns, which they said came up within heavy rifle fire and were disabled. They especially praised one officer who refused to surrender, fired all his revolver' cartridges, drew his sword, and would have fallen had not the Boers attacked him only with the butt, determined to spare the life of so brave a man. I give the story: its truth will be known by this time.

Sickness continues. There are 900 cases of enteric in Intombi. A sister from the camp came and besought Colonel Stoneman with tears to stop the shameful robbery of the sick which goes on in the camp. The blame, of course, does not lie with him or the authorities here. The supplies are sent out regularly day by day. It is in the careless or corrupt distribution that the sick are robbed and murdered by a mob of cowardly Colonials of the rougher class, who had not enough courage to stay in the town, and now turn their native talent for swindling to the plunder of brave men who are suffering on their behalf.

A deputation of mayor and town councillors waited on Colonel Ward to-day. The petitioners humbly prayed that the bathing parties of soldiers below the town on Sundays might be stopped, because they shocked the feelings of the women. For a mixture of hypocrisy and heartlessness I take that deputation to be unequalled. The soldiers are exposed all the week long, day and night, to sun and cold and dirt, on rocks and hill-tops where it is impossible even to dip their hands in water. On Sunday the Boers seldom fire. The men are marched down in companies under the officers to bathe, and to any decent man or woman the sight of their pleasure is one of the few joys of the campaign. But those who think nothing of charging a soldier 6d. for a penny bottle of soda-water, or 2s. for twopenn'orth of cake, tremble for the feelings of their wives and daughters. Why do the women go to look? as Colonel Ward asked, in his indignant refusal even to listen to the petition. Sunday is the one day when they can stay at home with safety, and leave their husbands to skulk in the river holes if they please.

December 21, 1899.

"Puffing Billy," of Bulwan, distinguished himself this morning by sending one shot into Colonel Ward's house and the next into the general's just beyond. In Colonel Ward's was a live Christmas turkey, over which a sentry is posted day and night. At first the rumour spread that the bird was mortally wounded; its thigh fractured, its liver penetrated. But about midday public alarm was allayed by the news that the invaluable creature could be seen strutting about and stiffening its feathers as usual. It had not even suffered from shock. The second shot went through Sir Henry Rawlinson's office, which he had just left, and shattered the Headquarters' larder, depriving the Staff of butter for the rest of the siege. It has made a model ruin for future sightseers. Unhappily the general was ill in bed with slight fever, and had to be carried to another house up the hill in a dhoolie. This may have encouraged the Boers to think they had killed him.

It was again a bad day for the heliograph, and the Boers have purposely kindled a veldt fire across the line of light. But I think I got through my thirty words of Christmas greeting to the Chronicle. I tried in vain all day for a Kaffir runner, but in the late afternoon I rode away over the plain, past the racecourse, and through the thorns at the foot of Caesar's Camp, till I almost came in touch with the enemy's piquets at Intombi. I saw a flock of long-billed waders, like small whimbrel, a great variety of beautiful little doves, and many of that queer bird the natives call Sakonboota, whose tail grows so long in the breeding season that his little wings can hardly lift it above the ground, and he flutters about in the breeze like a badly made kite. Riding back at sunset over the flat I felt like Montaigne when he desired to wear away his life in the saddle. The difference is that in the end I may have to eat my own horse. The shells from four guns kept singing their evening hymn above my head as I cantered along.



December 22, 1899.

The morning opened with one of those horrible disasters which more than balance our general good luck. The Bulwan gun began his morning shell rather later than usual. His almost invariable programme is to fire five or six shots at the bakery or soda-water shed beside my cottage; then to give a few to the centre of the town, and to finish off with half a dozen at the Light Horse and Gordons down by the Iron Bridge. Having earned his breakfast, he usually stops then, and cools down a bit. The performance is so regular that when he has finished with our end of the town the men cease to take precautions even at the sound of the whistle or bugle which gives notice of danger whenever the special sentry sees the gun flash.

But this morning the routine was changed. Having waked me up as usual with the crash of shells close by on my left, the gun was turned down town, smashed into a camp or two without damage, and then suddenly whipped round on his pivot and sent a shell straight into the Gloucester lines, about 300 yards away to my right. It pitched just on the top of a traverse at the foot of the low hill now held by the Devons. The men were quite off their guard, busy with breakfast and sharing out the kettles. In an instant five lay dead and twelve were wounded. The shell burst so close that three of the dead were horribly scorched. One got covered by a tarpaulin, and was not found at first. His body was split open, one leg was off, his head was burnt and smashed to pulp. The cries of the wounded told me at once what had happened. Summoned by telephone, the dhoolies came quickly up and bore them away, together with the remains of the dead. Three of the wounded died before the night. Eight dead and nine wounded—it is worse than the disaster to the King's (Liverpools) almost exactly on the same spot a few weeks ago. In the middle of the morning much the same thing nearly happened to the 5th Lancers. The 6 in. gun on Telegraph Hill, usually more noisy than harmful, was banging away at the Old Camp and the Naval battery on Cove Hill, when one of the shells ricocheted off the hill-top, and plunged into the Lancers' camp at the foot. Four officers were hit, including the colonel, who had a bit of finger blown off, and a segment through both legs. A sergeant lost an eye. One officer ducked his head and got a fragment straight through his helmet. The shell was a chance shot, but that made it no better. The men are sick of being shot at like rabbits, and sicker still of running into rabbit holes for shelter. The worst of all is that we can no longer reply for fear of wasting ammunition.

There was no sound of Buller's guns all day. I induced another Kaffir to make the attempt of running the Boer lines. Mr. McCormick, a Colonial correspondent, also started. I should go myself, but have no wish to be shut up in Pretoria for the rest of the campaign, cut off from all letters, and more useless even than I am here. So I spent the afternoon with others, building a sand-bag fort round the tent where Mr. Steevens is to be nursed, beside the river bank. The five o'clock shells came pretty close, pitching into the Light Horse camp and the main watering ford. But the tent itself is fairly safe. The feeding of the horses is our greatest immediate difficulty. Every bit of edible green is being seized and turned to account. I find vine-leaves a fair substitute for grass, but my horses are terribly hungry all the same.

December 23, 1899.

The bombardment was violent at intervals, and some hundreds of shells must have been thrown at us. But there was no method or concentration in the business.

Buller's guns were heard for about two hours in the morning, and wild rumours filled the air. Roberts and Kitchener were coming out. Buller was across the Tugela. Within the week our relief was certain. At night the 18th Hussars gave another concert among the rocks by the riverside. In the midst of a comic song on the inner meaning of Love came a sound as of distant guns. The inner meaning of Love was instantly forgotten. All held their breaths to listen. But it was only some horses coming down to water, and we turned to Love again, while the waning moon rose late beside Lombard's Kop, red and shapeless as a potsherd.

December 24, 1899.

Nothing disturbed the peace of Christmas Eve except three small shells thrown into the town about five o'clock tea-time, for no apparent reason. The main subject of interest was the chance of getting any Christmas dinner. Yesterday twenty-eight potatoes were sold in the market for 30s. A goose fetched anything up to L3, a turkey anything up to L5. But the real problem is water. The river is now a thick stream of brown mud, so thick that it cannot be filtered unless the mud is first precipitated. We used to do it with alum, but no alum is left now. Even soda-water is almost solid.

December 25, 1899.

The Boer guns gave us an early Christmas carol, and at intervals all day they joined in the religious and social festivities. Our north end of the town suffered most, and we beguiled the peaceful hours in digging out the shells that had nearly killed us. They have a marketable value. One perfect specimen of a 96lb. shell from Bulwan fell into a soft flower bed and did not burst or receive a scratch. I suppose it cost the Boers about L35, and it would still fetch L10 as a secondhand article. A brother to it pitched into a boarding house close by us, and blew the whole gable end sky high. Unhappily two of the inmates were wounded, and a horse killed.

But such little contretemps as shells did not in the least interfere with the Christmas revels. About 250 children are still left in the town or river caves (where one or two have recently been born), and it was determined they should not be deprived of their Christmas tree. The scheme was started and organised by Colonel Rhodes and Major "Karri" Davis, of the Imperial Light Horse. Four enormous trees were erected in the auction rooms and decked with traditional magnificence and toys ransacked from every shop. At half-past eight p.m. fairyland opened. A gigantic Father Christmas stalked about with branches of pine and snowy cap (the temperature at noon was 103deg. in the shade). Each child had a ticket for its present, and joy was distributed with military precision. When the children had gone to their dreams the room was cleared for a dance, and round whirled the khaki youths with white-bloused maidens in their arms. It was not exactly the Waterloo Ball with sound of revelry by night, but I think it will have more effect on the future of the race.

Other festivities, remote from the unaccustomed feminine charm, were a series of mule races, near the old camp, for soldiers and laughing Kaffir boys. The men's dinner itself was enough to mark the day. It is true everything was rather skimped, but after the ordinary short rations it was a treat to get any kind of pudding, any pinch of tobacco, and sometimes just a drop of rum.

Almost the saddest part of the siege now is the condition of the animals. The oxen are skeletons of hunger, the few cows hardly give a pint of milk apiece, the horses are failing. Nothing is more pitiful than to feel a willing horse like mine try to gallop as he used, and have to give it up simply for want of food. During the siege I have taught him to talk better than most human beings, and his little apologies are really pathetic when he breaks into something like his old speed and stops with a sigh. It is the same with all.



CHAPTER XV

SICKNESS, DEATH, AND A NEW YEAR

LADYSMITH, December 26, 1899.

Good news came through the heliograph about General Gatacre's force at Dordrecht. There were rumours about Lord Methuen, too, for which Dr. Jameson was quoted as authority. But the best evidence for hope was the unusual violence of the bombardment. It began early, and before the middle of the afternoon the Boers had thrown 178 shells at us. They were counted by a Gordon officer on Moriden's Castle, and the total must have reached nearly 200 before sunset. Such feverish activity is nearly always a sign of irritation on the part of the Dutch, and one can always hope the irritation is due to bad news for them.

I have not heard of any loss in town or camp. Our guns, with the exception of the howitzers and Major Wing's field guns, which can just reach the new howitzer on Surprise Hill, have hardly replied at all.

The milk question was the most serious of the day. I saw a herd of thirty-five cows which had only yielded sixteen pints at milking time. It is now debated whether we shall not have to feed the cows and starve the horses; or kill the thinnest horses and stew them down into broth for the others. The reports about the condition of Intombi Camp were particularly horrible to-day. But General Hunter will not allow any one to visit the camp, and it is no good repeating secondhand reports.

December 27, 1899.

The side of Tunnel Hill, at the angle of the Helpmakaar road, where Liverpools and Gloucesters have suffered in turn, was to-day the scene of an exactly similar disaster to the Devons.

The great Bulwan gun began shelling us later than usual. It must have been past eight. The Devon officers had long finished breakfast, and after inspecting the lines were gathered for orderly room in their mess. It is a fairly large shed on a platform of beaten earth, levelled in the side of the hill. The roof, of corrugated iron and earth, covered with tarpaulin, would hardly even keep out splinters, and is only supported on rough wooden beams. It is impossible to construct sufficient head shelter. The ground is so rocky that all you can do with it is to build walls and traverses. Along one side of the mess tent a great traverse runs, some eight or ten feet thick, and about as high. When the sentry blows the warning whistle at the flash of a big gun, officers are supposed to come under the shelter of this traverse, till the shell has passed or declared its direction. At the first shot this morning I heard no whistle blow, but it was sounded at the second and third. It was the third that did the damage. Striking the top of the traverse, it plunged forward in huge fragments into the messroom, tearing an enormous hole in the tarpaulin screen. Unhappily Mr. Dalzell, a first lieutenant with eight years' service, had refused to come under the wall, and was sitting at the table reading. The main part of the shell struck him full on the side of the face, and carried away nearly all his head. He passed painlessly from his reading into death. The state of the messroom when I saw it was too horrible to describe. The wounds of the other officers prove that the best traverse is insufficient unless accompanied by head shelter. Though their backs were against the wall, seven were wounded, and three others badly bruised. Two cases are serious: Lieutenant P. Dent had part of his skull taken off, and Lieutenant Caffin had a compound fracture of the shoulder-blade. Lieutenant Cane, an "orficer boy," who only joined on Black Monday, was also wounded in the back. The dhoolies quickly came and bore the wounded away to the Wesleyan Chapel. Mr. Dalzell was buried in the afternoon. "Well, well," sighed the old gravedigger, "I never thought I should live to bury a man without a head."

To-day, for the first time, we heard that Lord Roberts had lost his only son at Colenso. The whole camp was sad about it. The scandal over the robbery of the sick by the civilians at Intombi has grown so serious that at last General Hunter is sending out Colonel Stoneman to investigate. I have myself repeatedly endeavoured to telegraph home known facts about the corruption and mismanagement, but all I wrote has been scratched out by the Censorship. One such little fact I may mention now. The 18th Hussar officers at Christmas gave up a lot of little luxuries, such as cakes and things, which count high in a siege, and sent them down to their sick at Intombi. Not a crumb of it all did the sick ever receive. Everything disappeared en route—stolen by officials, or sold to greedy Colonials for whom the sick had fought. It is a small point, but characteristic of the whole affair.

December 28, 1899.

The night was wet and pitchy dark. Only by the help of the lightning I had stumbled and plunged home to bed, when at about eleven a perfect storm of rifle-fire suddenly swept along the ridges at our end of the town. Rushing out I saw the edges of the hills twinkle with lines of flashes right away to Gun Hill and Bulwan. Alarmed at the darkness, and hearing strange sounds in the rain the Boers had taken a scare and were blazing away at vacancy, in terror of another night attack. The uproar lasted about five minutes. Then all was quiet until, as dawn was breaking, "Lady Anne" and "Bloody Mary" shook me off my camp bed with the crash of seven reports in quick succession just over my roof. For some days it had been an idea of Captain Lambton's to catch the Boer gunners on Bulwan just as they were going up to their big gun, or were occupied with early breakfast. Five of our shells burst on the face of the hill where many Boers spend the night, probably to protect the gun. The two last fell on the top, close to the gun itself. The latter did not fire at all to-day, and I saw the Boers standing about it in groups evidently excited and disturbed.

The bombardment continued much as usual in other parts, and I spent the afternoon with the 69th Battery on Leicester Post, watching Major Wing reply to the new howitzer on Surprise Hill. Rain fell heavily at times, and the Boers never like firing in the wet.

The day was chiefly marked by Colonel Stoneman's visit to Intombi Camp to inquire into the reported scandals. He thinks that the worst of the corruption and swindling is already over, being killed by the very scandal. But he found a general want of organisation in the distribution of food and other stores. There are now 2,557 inhabitants of the camp, of whom 1,015 are sick and wounded soldiers. Of late the numbers have been increasing by forty or fifty a day, allowing for those who return or die. The graves to-day number eighty-three, and a gang of forty Kaffirs is always digging. Outside the military, the majority of the refugees are Kaffirs and coolies, the white civilians only numbering 600 or 700. Colonel Stoneman had all, except the sick, paraded in groups, and assigned separate tasks to each—nursing for the whites, digging and sanitation for the Kaffirs, cooking and skilled labour for the coolies. One important condition he made—every one required to work is also required to take his day's wage. The medical authority has objected to certain improvements on the ground of expense, but, as Colonel Stoneman says, what will England care about a few thousands at such a crisis in her history? Or what would she say if we allowed her sick and wounded to die in discomfort for the want of a little money? By to-morrow all the sick will have beds and even sheets, food will be distributed on a better organised plan, and civilians will be raised from a two-months' slough of feeding, sleeping, grumbling, and general swinishness unredeemed even by shells.



At night the British flashlight from Colenso was throwing signals upon the cloudy sky, and it was amusing to watch the Boers trying to confuse the signals by flashing their two searchlights upon the same cloud. They have one light west of us near Bester's Station, and to-night they showed a very brilliant electric light on the top of Bulwan. When our signalling stopped, they turned it on the town, and very courteously lighted me home. It was like the clearest moonlight, the shadows long and black, but all else distinct in colourless brilliance. The top of Bulwan is four miles from our main street. To make up for yesterday the shells were particularly lively to-day. Before breakfast one fell on the railway behind our house, one into the verandah next door, and two into our little garden. Unhappily, the last killed one of our few remaining fowls—shivered it into air so that nothing but a little cloud of feathers was seen again. In the middle of the afternoon old "Puffing Billy" again opened fire with energy. I was at the tailor's on the main street, and the shells were falling just round his shop. "Thirty-eight, thirty-four," said the little Scot measuring. "There's the Dutch church gone. Forty-two, sixteen. There's the bank. Just hold the tape, mon, while I go and look. Oh, it's only the Town Hall!" Among other shells one came in painted with the Free State colours, and engraved "With the compliments of the season." It is the second thus adorned, but whereas the first had been empty, this was charged with plum-pudding. Can it be a Dutchman who has such a pleasant wit? The condition of the horses becomes daily more pitiful. Some fall in the street and cannot get up again for weakness. Most have given up speed. The 5th Lancers have orders never to move quicker than a walk. The horses are just kept alive by grass which Hindoos grub up by the roots. A small ration of ground mealies and bran is also issued. Heavy rain came on and fell all night, during which we heard two far-off explosions.

December 30, 1899.

Going up to Leicester Post in the early morning, I found the K.R. Rifles drying themselves in the African sun, which blazed in gleams between the clouds. Without the sun we should fare badly. As it is, the rain, exposure, and bad food are reducing our numbers fast. Passing the 11th Field Hospital on my way up, I saw stretcher after stretcher moving slowly along with the sick in their blankets. "Dysentery, enteric; enteric, dysentery," were the invariable answers. All the thousands of shells thrown at us in the last two months count for nothing beside the sickness.

On the top of the hill I found the two guns of Major Wing's battery trained on Surprise Hill as usual. In accordance with my customary good fortune all the enemy's guns opened fire at once. But only the howitzer, the automatic, and the Bluebank were actually aimed our way. The Bluebank was most effective.

It was amusing to see the men of the 60th when a shell pitched among them to-day. How they regarded it as a busy man regards the intrusion of the housemaid—just a harmless necessary nuisance, and no more. The cattle took the little automatic shells in much the same spirit, but with an addition of wonder—staring at them and snuffing with bovine astonishment. The Kaffir herdsmen first ran yelling in every direction, and then rushed back to dig the shell up, amid inextinguishable laughter. The Hindoo grass-cutter neither ran nor laughed, but awaited destiny with resignation. By the way, there is a Hindoo servant in the 19th Hussar lines, who at the approach of a "Long Tom" shell always falls reverently on his face and prays to it.

At sundown, in hopes of adding to our starvation rations, I went out among the thorns at the foot of Caesar's Camp to shoot birds and hares. But the thorns are fast disappearing as firewood, and the appalling rain almost drowned me in the rush of the spruits. So we dined as usual on lumps of trek-ox thinly disguised. Talking of rain, I forgot to mention that the deluge on Friday night drowned six horses of the Leicester Mounted Infantry, carried away twenty-seven of their saddles, broke down the grand shelter-caves of the Imperial Light Horse, carried their bridge away to the blue, and flooded out half the poor homes of natives and civilians dug in the sand of the river banks.

Sunday, December 31, 1899.

Most of my day was wasted in an attempt to get leave to visit Intombi. Colonel Exham (P.M.O.) and Major Bateson had asked me to go down and give a fair account of what I saw. General Hunter took my application to the Chief, but Sir George thought it contrary to his original agreement with Joubert, that none but medical and commissariat officers should enter the camp. So Intombi remains unvisited—a vision of my own. In high quarters I gather that, considering the great difficulties of the case, the camp is thought a successful piece of work, very creditable to the officers in charge. Otherwise the day was chiefly remarkable for the unusual amount of firing at the outposts, and the arrival by runner of a Natal newspaper with the news that Lord Roberts was coming out. As it was New Year's eve, we expected a midnight greeting from the Boer guns, and sure enough, between twelve and one, all the smaller guns in turn took one shot into vacancy and then were still.

January 1, 1900.

The Bulwan gun began the New Year with energy. He sent thirty of his enormous shells into the camps and town, eight or nine of which fell in quick succession among the Helpmakaar fortifications, now held by the Liverpools.

Three or four houses in the town were wrecked by shells, the most decisive ruin being at Captain Valentine's. The shell went through the iron verandah, pierced the stone wall above the front door without bursting, and exploded against the partition wall of the passage and drawing-room. Throwing forward, it cleared away the kitchen wall, and swept the kitchen clean. Down a passage to the right the expansion of the air blew off a heavy door, and threw it across the bed of a wounded Rifle Brigade officer. He escaped unhurt, but a valued servant from the Irish Rifles got a piece of shell through back and stomach as he was preparing breakfast in the kitchen. He died in a few hours. His last words were, "I hope you got your breakfast all right, sir."

The house had long been a death-trap. Perhaps the Boers aim at the telegraph-office across the road, or possibly spies have told them Colonel Rhodes goes there for meals. The General has now declared the place too dangerous for habitation.

In the afternoon we were to have had a military tournament on the Islington model, but the General stopped it, because the enemy would certainly have thrown shells into our midst, and women and children would have been there. At night, however, the Natal Volunteers gave another open-air concert. In the midst we heard guns—real guns—from Colenso way. Between the reflected flash on the sky and the sound of the report one could count seventy-eight seconds, which Captain Lambton tells me gives a distance of about fifteen and a half miles. All day distant guns were heard from time to time. Some said the direction was changed, but I could hear no difference.

The mayor and councillors relieve the monotony of the siege with domestic solicitude. To-day they are said to be preparing a deputation to the General imploring that the first train which comes up after the relief shall be exclusively devoted—not to medical stuff for the wounded, not to food for the hungry troops and fodder for the starving horses, not to the much-needed ammunition for the guns—but to their own women.

January 2, 1900.

Soon after daylight dropping bullets began to whiz past my window and crack upon the tin roof in quite a shower. The Boer snipers had crept up into Brooks's Farm, beyond the Harrismith railway, and were firing at the heads of our men on Junction Hill. Whenever they missed the edge of the hill the bullets fell on my cottage. At last some guns opened fire from our Naval battery on Cove Redoubt. Captain Lambton had permitted the Natal Naval Volunteers to blaze away some of their surplus ammunition at the snipers. And blaze they did! Their 3-pounders kept up an almost continuous fire all the morning, and hardly a sniper has been heard since. There was nothing remarkable about the bombardment.

"Puffing Billy" gave us his four doses of big shell as usual. Whilst I was at the Intelligence Office a shell lit among some houses under the trees in front, killed two and wounded others. The action of another shell would seem incredible if I had not seen it. The thing burst among the 13th Battery, which stands under shelter of Tunnel Hill, in a straight line with my road, less than 300 yards away. I was just mounting my horse and stopped to see the burst, when a fragment came sauntering high through the air and fell with a thud in the garden just behind me. It was a jagged bit of outer casing about three inches thick, and weighing over 6 lbs. The extraordinary thing about it was that it had flung off exactly at right angles from the line of fire. Gunners say that melinite sometimes does these things.

I rode south-west, over Range Post and a bit of the Long Valley to Waggon Hill, our nearest point to the relief column and the English mail. At no great distance—ten miles or so—I could see the hills overlooking the Tugela, where the English are. Far beyond rose the crags and precipices of the Drakensberg, illuminated by unearthly gleams of the setting sun, which found their way beneath the fringes of a purple thunder-shower and turned to amber-brown a cloud of smoke rising from the burning veldt.

January 3, 1900.

The quiet hour before sunrise was again broken by the crash of our Naval guns. "Bloody Mary" (now politely called the "Princess Victoria") threw five shells along the top of Bulwan. A Naval 12-pounder sent three against the face of the hill. Again it was intended to catch the Boer gunners and guard as they were getting up and preparing breakfast.

January 4, 1900.

No news came in, and it was a day as dull as peace, but for some amenities of bombardment.

The Surprise Hill howitzer tried a longer range. At lunch "Bulwan Billy" made some splendid shots close to our little mess and burst the tanks at Taylor's mineral water works. In the wet afternoon the big gun's work was less dignified. He threw five shrapnel over the cattle licking up what little grass was left on the flat, and did not kill a single cow.

The guides boast that to-day they killed one Boer by strategy used for tigers in India. Two or three of them went out to Star Kopje and loosed two miserable old ponies, driving them towards the Boer lines to graze. A Boer or two came for the prize and one was shot dead.

At night the flash signals from Colenso were very brilliant on a black and cloudy sky. They only said, "Dearest love from your own Nance," or "Baby sends kisses," but the Bulwan searchlight tried hard to thwart their affectionate purpose by waving his ray quickly up and down across the flashing beam.

January 5, 1900.

There was little to mark the day beyond the steady shelling of snipers by the Natal Navals, and a great 96lb. shell from Bulwan which plunged through a Kaffir house, where black labourers live stuffed together, took off a Kaffir's foot, ricocheted over our little mess-room, just glancing off the roof, and fell gasping, but still entire, beside our verandah. I rode up to Caesar's Camp in the morning sun. It was a scene of sleepy peace, only broken by the faint interest of watching where the shells burst in the town far below.



CHAPTER XVI

THE GREAT ATTACK

January 6, 1900.

It has been a commonplace of the war that the Boers could cling to a position of their own choosing from behind stones, but would never venture to attack a position or fight in the open. Like all the comforting commonplaces about the Boers, this is now overthrown. The untrained, ill-equipt farmers have to-day assaulted positions of extraordinary strength, have renewed the attack again and again, have rushed up to breastworks, and died at the rifle's mouth, and have only been repulsed after fifteen hours of hard and gallant fighting on the part of the defence.

Waggon Hill is a long, high spur of Caesar's Camp, running out south-west between Long Valley and Bester's Farm. At the extremity, as I have described, are the great gun-pits prepared for "Lady Anne" and a Naval 12-pounder some weeks ago. "Lady Anne" was for the second time being brought up into position there last night, and ought to have been fixed the night before, but was stopped half-way by the wet.

The Boer attack was probably not merely an attempt on the gun, but on the position, and the gun is being taken back to her usual position to-night. Besides the gun-pits, the hill has no defences except a few low walls, only two or three stones high, piled up at intervals round the edge, as shelters from long-range fire. The place was held only by three dismounted squadrons of Imperial Light Horse, but the 1st K.R.R. (60th) were in support in a large sangar about three-quarters of a mile along the same ridge, separated from Waggon Hill proper by the low "nek" where the two howitzers used to stand. From the 60th the ridge turns at an angle eastward, and becomes the long tableland of Caesar's Camp, held by the Manchesters and 42nd Battery (Major Goulburn). The top is broad and flat, covered with grass and loose stones. The whole position completely overlooks the town to the north, and if it fell into the enemy's hands we should either have to retake it or quit the camps and town. The edge measures 4,000 yards, and the Manchesters had only 560 men to hold it.

At a quarter to three a.m., while it was still dark, a small party of Boer sharpshooters climbed up the further (south-east) face of Waggon Hill, just left of the "nek." They were picked men who had volunteered for the exploit. Nearly all came from Harrismith. We had posted a picket of eight at the point, but long security had made them careless, or else they were betrayed by a mistake which nearly lost the whole position. From the edge of the hill the whole face is "dead" ground. It is so steep that an enemy climbing up it cannot be seen. It was almost a case of Majuba again.

The Dutch crept up quite unobserved. At last a sentry challenged, and was answered with "Friend." He was shot dead, and was found with rifle raised and still loaded. The alarm was given, but no one realised what had happened. Captain Long (A.S.C.), who was superintending the transport of "Lady Anne," told me he could not understand how it was that bullets kept whistling past his nose. He thought the firing was from our own sentries. But the Dutch had reached the summit, and were enfilading the "nek" and the whole extremity of the hill from our left. As light began to dawn it was impossible to show oneself for a moment on the open top. The furthest range was not over 300 yards, and the top of a helmet, the corner of an arm, was sufficient aim for those deadly marksmen. Unable to stand against the fire, the Light Horse withdrew behind the crest of the hill, whilst small parties continued a desperate defence from the two big gun-pits.

Nearly all the officers present have been killed or wounded, and it is difficult to get a clear account of what happened from any eye-witness. Four companies from each battalion of the K.R. Rifles came up within the hour, but no one keeps count of time in such a struggle. The Boers were now climbing up all along the face of the hill, and firing from the edge. All day about half the summit was in their possession. Three times they actually occupied the gun-pits and had to be driven out again. Leaning their rifles over the parapets they fired into the space inside. It was so that Major Miller-Wallnutt, of the Gordons, was killed. Old De Villiers, the Harrismith commandant, shot him over the wall, and was in turn shot by Corporal Albrecht, of the Light Horse, who was himself shot by a Field-Cornet, who was in turn shot by Digby-Jones, the sapper. So it went on. The Boers advanced to absolutely certain death, and they met it without hesitation—the Boers who would never have the courage to attack a position! One little incident illustrates their spirit. A rugged old Boer finding one of the I.L.H. wounded on the ground, stopped under fire and bound him up. "I feel no hatred towards you," he said, "but you have no reason to fight at all. We are fighting for our country." He turned away, and a bullet killed him as he turned.

Before six o'clock the defence was further reinforced by a party of Gordons from Maiden Castle. They did excellent work throughout the day, though they, too, were once or twice driven from the top. But the credit of the stand remains with the I.L.H. and a few sappers like Digby-Jones, who held one of the little forts alone for a time, killed three Boers with his revolver, and went for a fourth with the butt. He would have had the V.C. if he had not fallen. So perhaps would Dennis, of the Sappers, though I am told he was present without orders. Lord Ava, galloper to General Ian Hamilton, commanding the defences, was shot through the head early in the day, about six o'clock. Sent forward with a message to the Light Horse, he was looking through glasses over a rock when the bullet took him. While I write he is still alive, but given up. A finer fellow never lived. "You'd never take him for a lord," said an Irish sergeant, "he seems quite a nice gentleman." Equally sad was the loss of Colonel Dick-Cunyngham, of the Gordons. A spent bullet struck him in the back as he was leaving camp. The wound is mortal, and he had only just recovered from his wound at Elands Laagte.

So the fight began. The official estimate of the Boers who gained the top is 600. Eye-witnesses put the number at anything between 100 and 1,000. The struggle continued from 3 a.m. till nearly seven at night. It must be remembered that our men had nothing to eat from five the afternoon before, and got nothing till nine at night. Twenty-eight hours they were without food, and for about sixteen they were fighting for life and death. At 4 p.m. a tremendous thunderstorm with rain and hail came on, but the fire never slackened. The 21st and 67th Batteries were behind the position in front of Range Post, but were unable to give assistance for fear of killing our men. The 18th Hussars and 5th Dragoon Guards and some 5th Lancers came up dismounted to reinforce, but still the enemy clung to the rocks, and still it was death to creep out on the narrow level of the summit.

It was now evident that the position must be retaken at all costs, or the enemy would hold it all night. The General sent for three companies of the Devons. Up they came, tramping through the storm—that glorious regiment of Western Englishmen. Colonel Park and four other officers led them on. It was about six o'clock when they reached the summit. Keeping well to the left of the "nek," between the extremity held by the Light Horse and the 60th's sangar, they took open order under cover of the ridge. Then came the command to sweep the position with the bayonet. They fixed, and advanced at the quick till they reached the open. Then, under a steady hail of bullets, they came on at the double—180 men, with the steel ready. Colonel Park himself led them. The Boers kept up an incessant fire till the line was within fifteen yards. Then they turned and ran, leaping down the steep face of the hill, and disappearing in the dead ground. Their retreat was gallantly covered by their comrades, who swept the ridge with an oblique fire from both sides.

The Devons, edging a little to the right in their charge, got some cover from a low wall near the "nek" just quitted by the Boers. Even there the danger was terrible. It was there that four officers fell, three stone dead. It will be long before such officers as Lafone (already twice wounded in this war) and Field can be replaced. Lieutenant Masterson, formerly a private, and later a colour-sergeant in the Irish Fusiliers, was ordered back over the exposed space cleared by the first charge to bring up a small reinforcement further on the left. On the way he was shot at least three times, but staggered on and gave his order. He still survives, and is recommended for the Victoria Cross. He comes of a fighting Irish stock, and his great-grandfather captured the French Eagle at Barossa in the Peninsular War. He received his commission for gallantry in Egypt.

But the day was won. The position was cleared. That charge finished the business. The credit for the whole defence against one of the bravest attacks ever made rests with the Light Horse, the Gordons, and the Devons. Yet it is impossible to forget the unflinching self-devotion of the King's Royal Rifle officers. They suffered terribly, and the worst is they suffered almost in vain. At one moment, when the defenders had been driven back over the summit's edge, Major Mackworth (of the Queen's, but attached to the King's Royal Rifles) went up again, calling on the men to follow him. Just with his walking-stick in his hand he went up, and with the few brave men who followed him he died.

The attack on the main position of Caesar's Camp was much the same in plan and result. At 3 a.m. the Manchester pickets along the extremity's left edge (i.e., north-east) were surprised by the appearance of Boers in their very midst. Lieutenant Hunt-Grubbe, who was visiting the pickets, mistook them for volunteers. "Hullo! Boers!" he cried out. They laughed and answered, "Yes, burghers!" He was a prisoner in their hands for some hours. The whole of one section was shot dead at their post. The alarm was given, but the outlying sentries and piquets could not move from the little shelters and walls which alone protected them from the oblique fire from an unknown direction. Many were shot down. Some remained hidden at the bottom of their defence pits till late in the afternoon without being able to stir. Creeping up the dead ground on the cliffs face, which is covered with rocks and thick bushes, the Boers lined the left edge of the summit in great numbers. Probably about 1,000 attacked that part alone, and about 200 advanced on to the top. They were all Transvaal Boers, chiefly volunteers from the commandoes of Heidelburg and Wakkerstroom. This main body was attempting to take our left (north) side of the hill in flank, and kept edging through the thorns and dongas near the foot. The Natal Police, supported by the Natal Mounted Rifles, had been set to prevent such a movement, but had left a gap of 500 yards between their right and three companies of Gordons stationed in front of "Fly" kraal on that side of the hill. At last, observing the enemy in a donga, they challenged, and were met by the answer, "For God's sake, don't fire; we're the Town Guard." At once they were undeceived by a volley which killed one of them and wounded a few others. How far they avenged this act of treachery I have not discovered. The Boers flanking movement was only checked by the 53rd Battery (Major Abdy), which was posted on the flat across the river from the show ground, and did splendid service all day. It shelled the side and top of the hill almost incessantly, though the big Bulwan gun kept pouring shrapnel and common shell right in front of it, making all the veldt look like a ploughed field.

Meantime the Boers on the summit held their ground. Their movement was backed by three field guns and two automatics across the Bester's valley at ranges of 2,000 yards and 4,000 yards. Their further advance along the edge was really checked by two Manchester privates, Scott and Pitts, who kept up an incessant fire from their little wall at the extremity after all their comrades were shot. Three companies of the Rifle Brigade at last came up to reinforce. Then the G Company of the Gordons, under Captain Carnegie. But for a long time no one knew where the gap in our line really was. About half-past nine one could see the enemy still thick among the rocks and trees on the left of the extremity, though the shrapnel was dropping all among them from the 53rd Battery. It was just before this that Lieutenant Walker, watching with a telescope from the signal station on the Convent, saw two Boers creeping along the edge alone for about 150 yards under tremendous fire. Suddenly a shrapnel took them, and both fell down. They were father and son. About half-past ten the first assault was repulsed, and for a time the Boers disappeared, but one could see reinforcements massing behind a hill called the "Red Kopje," across the deep stream of the Bester's valley. The second main attack was delivered about one, and the third during the storm at five. I think, after the first assault, the Boer line never advanced beyond the cover of the edge. But their incessant fire was supported by a storm of long-range bullets from the heights across the valley. The position was not finally cleared till nearly seven.

The attack and the defence were equally gallant, as at Waggon Hill. Our guns were of far more service than theirs, but probably the loss by rifle fire was not so great, the range being longer. The total force of the attack on both positions was probably about 7,000. Some 2,000 Volunteers led the way—old Boer farmers and picked men who came forward after a prayer meeting on Friday. For immovable courage I think it would be impossible to beat our gunners—especially of the 42nd and 53rd Batteries. All through the action they continued the routine of gunnery just as if they were out for exercise on the sands.

By seven o'clock the main positions on the south side of our defences were safe. On the north, fighting had been going on all day also. At about 4 a.m. the artillery and rifle fire was so violent around Observation Hill that I thought the main attack was on that point. Originally the Boers no doubt intended a strong attack there. The hill has always been one of the weakest points of our defence.

The Boers began their attack on Observation Hill just before dawn with a rapid fire of guns and rifles at long range. At first only our guns replied, the two of the 69th doing excellent work with shrapnel over the opposite ridges. By about six we could see the Boers creeping forward over Bell Spruit and making their way up the dongas and ridges in our front. At about eight there was a pause, and it seemed as if the attack was abandoned, but it began again at nine with greater violence. The shell fire was terrific. Every kind of shell, from the 45-pounder of the 4.7 in. howitzer down to the 1-1/2-pounder of the automatic, was hurled against those little walls, while shrapnel burst almost incessantly overhead.

It is significant for our own use of artillery that not a single man 'was killed by shells, though the air buzzed with them. The loose stone walls were cover enough. But the demoralising effect of shell fire is well known to all who have stood it. A good regiment is needed to hold on against such a storm. But the Devons are a good regiment—perhaps the best here now—and, under the command of Major Curry, they held. At half-past nine the rifle fire at short range became terrible.

Boers were crawling up over what little dead ground there was, and one group of them reached an edge from which they began firing into our breastwork at about fifteen yards. One or two of them sprang up as though to charge. With bayonets they might have come on, but, standing to fire, they were at once shot down. Among them was Schutte, the commandant of the force. He was killed on the edge, with about ten others. Then the attacking group fell back into the dead ground. Our men got the order not to fire on them if they ran away. It was the best means of clearing them off the hill, and they made off one by one. The long-range fire continued all day, but there was no further rush upon our works. Our loss was only two men killed and a few wounded. The Boer loss is estimated at fifty, but it is impossible to know.

The King's (Liverpools), who now hold the works built by the Devons on the low Helpmakaar ridge, were also under rifle and shell fire all day. About 3 p.m. about eighty Boers came down the deep ravine or donga at the further end of the ridge. A mounted infantry picket of three men was away across the donga, watching the road towards Lombard's Nek. Instead of retiring, they calmly lay down and fired into the thick of the Boers whenever they saw them. Apparently the Boers had intended some sort of attack or feint, but, instead of advancing, they remained hidden in the donga, firing over the banks. At last Major Grattan, fearing the brave little picket might be cut off, sent out two infantry patrols in extended order, and the Boers did not await their coming; they hurried up the donga into the shelter of the thorns, which just now are all golden with balls of sweet-smelling blossom.

Soon after the sun set behind the storm of rain the fighting ceased. The long and terrible day was done. I found myself with the Irish Fusiliers at Range Post, where the road crosses to the foot of Waggon Hill. The stream of ambulance was incessant—covered mule-waggons, little ox-carts, green dhoolies carried by indomitable Hindoos, knee-deep in water, and indifferent to every kind of death. In the sixteen hours' fighting we have lost fourteen officers and 100 men killed, twenty-one officers and 220 men wounded. The victory is ours. Our men have done what they were set to do. But two or three more such victories, and where should we be?

Sunday, January 7, 1900.

The men remained on the position all night under arms, soaked through and hardly fed. Rum was issued, but half the carts lost their way in the dark, because the officers in charge had preferred to go fighting on the loose and got wounded. The men lay in pools of rain among the dead. Lieutenant Haag, 18th Hussars, kept apologising to the man next him for using his legs as a pillow. At dawn he found the man was a Rifleman long dead, his head in a puddle of blood, his stiff arms raised to the sky. Many such things happened. Under the storm of fire it had been impossible to recover all the wounded before dark. Some lay out fully twenty-four hours without help, or food, or drink. One of the Light Horse was used by a Boer as a rest for his rifle. When I reached Waggon Hill about nine this morning the last of the wounded were being brought down. Nearly all the Light Horse dead (twenty of them) had been taken away separately, but at the foot of the hill lay a row of the Gordons, bloody and stiff, their Major, Miller-Wallnutt, at their head, conspicuous by his size. The bodies of the Rifles were being collected. Some still lay curled up and twisted among the dripping rocks. Slowly the waggons were packed and sent off to the place of burial.

The broad path up the hill and the tracks along the top were stained with blood. It lay in sticky pools, which even the rain could not wash out. It was easy to see where the dead had fallen. Most had lain behind some rock to fire and there met their end. On the summit some Kaffirs were skinning eight oxen which had been spanned to the "Lady Anne's" platform, and stood immovable during the fight. Four had been shot in the action, the others had just been killed as rations. Passing to the further edge where the Boers crept up I saw a Boer ambulance and an ox-waggon waiting. Bearded Boers in their slouch hats stood round them with an English doctor from Harrismith, commandeered to serve. Our men were carrying the Boer wounded and dead down the steep slope. The dead were laid out in line, and put in the ox-waggon. At that time there were seventeen of them waiting, but eight others were still on the hill, and I found them where they fell. Most were grey-bearded men, rough old farmers, with wrinkled and kindly faces, hardened by a grand life in sun and weather. They were dressed in flannel shirts, rough old jackets of brown cloth, rough trousers with braces, weather-stained slouch hats, and every variety of boot. Only a few had socks. Some wore the yellow "veldt-shoes," some were bare-footed; their boots had probably been taken. They lay in their blood, their glazed blue eyes looking over the rocks or up to the sky, their ashen hands half-clenched, their teeth yellow between their pale blue lips.

Beside the outer wall of "Lady Anne's" sangar, his head resting on its stones, lay a white-bearded man, poorly dressed, but refined in face. It was De Villiers, the commandant of the Harrismith district—a relation, a brother perhaps, of the Chief Justice De Villiers, who entertained me at Bloemfontein less than four months ago. Across his body lay that of a much younger man, with a short brown beard. He is thought to have been one of the old man's field cornets, and had fought up to the sangar at his side till a bullet pierced his eye and brain.

Turning back from the extremity of our position, I went along the whole ridge. The ground told one as much as men could tell. Among the rocks lay blood-stained English helmets and Dutch hats; piles of English and Dutch cartridge-cases, often mixed together in places which both sides had occupied; scraps of biltong and leather belts; handkerchiefs, socks, pieces of letters, chiefly in Dutch; dropped ball cartridges of every model—Lee-Metford, Mauser, Martini, and Austrian. I found a few hollow-nosed bullets, too, expanding like the Dum-Dum. The effect of such a bullet was seen on the hat of some poor fellow in the Light Horse. There was a tiny hole on one side, but the further side was all rent to pieces. I hear some "express" sporting bullets have also been taken to the Intelligence Office, but I have not seen them. Beside one Boer was found one of the old Martini rifles taken from the 52nd at Majuba.

On the top of Caesar's Camp our dead were laid out for burial—Manchesters, Gordons, and Rifle Brigade together. The Boers turned an automatic Maxim on the burying party, thinking they were digging earthworks. In the wooded valley at the foot of the hill they themselves, under Geneva flags, were searching the bushes and dongas for their own dead, and disturbing the little wild deer beside the stream. On the summit parties of our own men were still engaged unwillingly in finding the Boer dead and carrying them down the cliff. Just at the edge of the summit, to which he had climbed in triumph, lay the body of a man about twenty. A shell had almost cut him in half.... Only his face and his hands were untouched. Like most of the dead he had the blue eyes and light hair of the well-bred Boer. When first he was found, his father's body lay beside him, shattered also, but not so horribly. They were identified by letters from home in their pockets.