ints of shell.

"That gunner," said the captain, waving his stick at Surprise Hill, "is
a German. Nobody but a German atheist would have fired on us at
breakfast, lunch, and dinner the same Sunday. It got too hot when he put
one ten yards from the cook. Anybody else we could have spared; then we
had to go."

We come to what looks like a sandbag redoubt, but in the eyes of heaven
is a conning-tower. On either side, from behind a sandbag epaulement, a
12-pounder and a Maxim thrust forth vigilant eyes. The sandbag plating
of the conning-tower was six feet thick and shoulder-high; the rivets
were red earth, loose but binding; on the parapets sprouted tufts of
grass, unabashed and rejoicing in the summer weather. Against the
parapet leaned a couple of men with the clean-cut, clean-shaven jaw and
chin of the naval officer, and half-a-dozen bearded bluejackets. They
stared hard out of sun-puckered eyes over the billows of kopje and
veldt.

Forward we looked down on the one 4.7; aft we looked up to the other. On
bow and beam and quarter we looked out to the enemy's fleet. Deserted
Pepworth's was on the port-bow, Gun Hill, under Lombard's Kop, on the
starboard, Bulwan abeam, Middle Hill astern, Surprise Hill on the
port-quarter.

Every outline was cut in adamant.

The Helpmakaar Ridge, with its little black ants a-crawl on their hill,
was crushed flat beneath us.

A couple of vedettes racing over the pale green plain northward looked
as if we could jump on to their heads. We could have tossed a biscuit
over to Lombard's Kop. The great yellow emplacement of their fourth big
piece on Gun Hill stood up like a Spit-head Fort. Through the big
telescope that swings on its pivot in the centre of the tower you could
see that the Boers were loafing round it dressed in dirty
mustard-colour.

"Left-hand Gun Hill fired, sir," said a bluejacket, with his eyes glued
to binoculars. "At the balloon"--and presently we heard the weary
pinions of the shell, and saw the little puff of white below.

"Ring up Mr Halsey," said the captain.

Then I was aware of a sort of tarpaulin cupboard under the breastwork,
of creeping trails of wire on the ground, and of a couple of sappers.

The corporal turned down his page of 'Harmsworth's Magazine,' laid it on
the parapet, and dived under the tarpaulin.

Ting-a-ling-a-ling! buzzed the telephone bell.

The gaunt up-towering mountains, the long, smooth, deadly guns--and the
telephone bell!

The