November 30.—Day breaks across white mists on the plain, and then comes gorgeous sunshine, with a glow of colour all round, brilliant orange in the east above Bulwaan, deepening to blood-red in the west behind the rugged crest of Mount Tintwa and the pitted peaks of Mont aux Sources. From daybreak onward there is heavy artillery fire on camp and town from every gun the Boers have mounted. Our howitzers and the "Meddler" began it with a merry little set-to between themselves, doing no harm. Then Surprise Hill, Telegraph Hill, Rifleman's Ridge, Bulwaan, and Lombard's Kop joined in, the last aiming straight for the hospital, with its Red Cross flag. Two shells had fallen close to that building, from which all haste was made to remove the helpless patients. Most of them had been got out when the third shot came crashing into the largest ward, and from among the ruins one dead man and nine freshly wounded were taken. Rifle fire quickened then about Observation Hill, and bullets flying overhead made many think that the Boers were coming on, but it all died away into silence without further casualties on our side. At night the column southward flashes another long signal on the clouded sky, and Boer search-lights try to obliterate it by throwing their feeble rays across the beam that shines like a comet athwart the darkness above Tugela heights.
December 1.—"Long Tom" of Pepworth's Hill, which has not fired since "Lady Anne" silenced it days ago, is now reported to be cracked and useless, but the Boers are preparing emplacements for another heavy piece of ordnance on a flat-topped nether spur of Lombard's Kop, where they have a persistently disagreeable 40-pounder already mounted. We do nothing to prevent this increase of hostile artillery, but content ourselves with inventing new names for the batteries, so that the intelligence map may be kept up to date with fullest details. This spur henceforth is to be known as Gun Hill, probably because the weapon already in position there has made itself conspicuously unpleasant by shelling the headquarters and intelligence offices. From it three successive shells were fired this morning into or near the convent where Colonel Dick-Cunyngham, Major Riddell, and other convalescent wounded have their quarters. Middle Hill gun only fired a few rounds to-day, and was promptly silenced by our "Great Twin Brethren," the howitzers of Waggon Hill.
December 2.—We are not left long in doubt as to the meaning of those new works on Gun Hill. A Creusot 94-pounder has opened from there, shelling in rapid succession Sir George White's headquarters camp, the Royal Artillery, and the Imperial Light Horse, who have their parade and playground pitted by marks of this fire. People say that "Long Tom" has been shifted from Pepworth's to the new position, but the shells, with their driving-bands grooved deep and sharp, tell another story. It is a new gun, or little used, and probably fresh from Pretoria. Its range is great, and gives easy command of the ravine in which our cavalry are bivouacked by the riverside. One shell has already burst there, wounding a man of the 18th Hussars, but fortunately the enemy cannot see the result of this fire, the river for a mile in length being screened from his view by intervening hills.
December 4.—One may skip Sunday when it is uneventful in its perfect peace, as yesterday was, and be deeply thankful for the rest that is given to us once a week when shells cease from troubling. The weather has changed suddenly from brilliant sunshine and almost tropical heat to cloudy skies that send the temperature down to shivering point. Few shells fell in the town this morning, when groups gathered at street corners discussing rumours of Lord Methuen's victory on Modder River, which are now officially confirmed. General Clery is also said to have defeated the Boers near Estcourt, but if so he did not get back the cattle they had looted, for we have watched them for hours driving great herds from southward up the roads that lead to Van Reenan's Pass.
Our batteries here have for once been most aggressive, shelling the enemy's position at Rifleman's Ridge vigorously, while the howitzers directed their fire on Middle Hill without drawing a reply from the 6-inch Creusot, which Captain Christie and his gunners believe to have been put out of action completely. His twin brother, "Puffing Billy" of Bulwaan, was also silenced for a time, but has come back to quite his old form this evening, and threw several shells into the town and camps, where troops assembled to cheer the news of Lord Methuen's victory when it was read out in general orders.
December 5.—The bombardment has been slack again to-day: all the enemy's big guns silent. But there is great movement among the Boers, who are apparently holding a great council of war at General Joubert's headquarters. This may account for rumours of dissensions between the Free State and Transvaal commandos.
December 6.—Now we know what the firing of Boer guns all round Ladysmith at midnight of 19th November meant. It was a night alarm magnified by imagination into a desperate sortie from Ladysmith, and a correspondent of the Diggers' News telegraphed his version of the affair in glowing terms to that paper, giving full details of things that never happened. A copy just received in camp causes much amusement. Reference to my notes for the 19th of last month will show that we were at perfect peace here. Not a man of this force except the ordinary patrols moved on the night when we are reported to have made that strenuous but futile effort to break through the enemy's lines, and not a shot was fired on our side. The Boers must have been startled at their own shadows or at the movements of a subaltern's patrol which they magnified into an army, and having beat the big drum they perhaps tried to justify themselves by sending that cock-and-bull story to Pretoria.
To-night our troops are out for exercise, marching through the streets, and singing or whistling merrily as they march. If the Boers get word of this they may have another scare. The daily bombardment is now so much a matter of course that one hardly makes a note of it unless some casualty brings home to us the fact that nobody is safe while shells fly about.
December 7.—During a heavy cannonade in which our naval batteries engaged Gun Hill and Bulwaan from six o'clock until ten this morning, women and children were walking about the streets quite unconcerned. Hundreds of shells have already fallen in the town, and there are some zealous statisticians who compile charts showing exactly where each shell struck and the direction from which it was fired, but the majority of us do not concern ourselves much about any that burst beyond a radius of fifty yards from our own camps or houses, and so many fall harmless that we seldom ask whether anybody has been hit, and it sometimes happens therefore that one does not hear of serious casualties except by accident. It comes rather as a surprise to find that our losses since the siege began, thirty-six days ago, amount to thirteen killed and one hundred and forty-eight wounded. A battle might have been won at less cost.