safe as Regent Street to-day: a curtain of
weeping cloud veils it from the haunting gunners on Bulwan. Up in the
schanzes the men huddle under waterproof sheets to escape the pitiless
drizzle. Only one sentry stands up in long black overcoat and grey
woollen nightcap pulled down over his ears, and peers out towards
Lombard's Kop. This position is safe enough with the bare green field of
fire before it, and the sturdy, shell-hardened soldiers behind.

But Lord, O poor Tommy! His waterproof sheet is spread out, mud-slimed,
over the top of the wall of stone and earth and sandbag, and pegged down
inside the schanz. He crouches at the base of the wall, in a miry hole.
Nothing can keep out this film of water. He sops and sneezes, runs at
the eyes and nose, half manful, half miserable. He is earning the
shilling a-day.

At lunch-time they began to shell us a bit, and it was almost a relief.
At anyrate it was something to see and listen to. They were dead-off
Mulberry Grove to-day, but they dotted a line of shells elegantly down
the High Street. The bag was unusually good--a couple of mules and a
cart, a tennis-lawn, and a water-tank. Towards evening the voice of the
pompom was heard in the land; but he bagged nothing--never does.

_Nov. 12._--Sunday, and the few rifle-shots, but in the main the usual
calm. The sky is neither obscured by clouds nor streaked with shells. I
note that the Sunday population of Ladysmith, unlike that of the City of
London, is double and treble that of week-days.

Long Tom chipped a corner off the church yesterday; to-day the
archdeacon preached a sermon pointing out that we are the
heaven-appointed instrument to scourge the Boers. Very sound, but
perhaps a thought premature.

_Nov. 13._--Laid three sovs. to one with the 'Graphic' yesterday against
to-day being the most eventful of the siege. He dragged me out of bed in
aching cold at four, to see the events.

At daybreak Observation Hill and King's Post were being shelled and
shelling back. Half battalions of the 1st, 60th, and Rifle Brigade take
day and day about on Observation Hill and King's Post, which is the
continuation of Cove Redoubts. To-day the 60th were on Leicester Post.
When shells came over them they merely laughed. One ring shell burst,
fizzing inside a schanz, with a steamy curly tail, and splinters that
wailed a quarter of a mile on to the road below us; the men only raced
to pick up the pieces.

When this siege is over thi