hink he ever got more than one calf.

There was a gun on Lombard's Kop called Silent Susan--so called because
the shell arrived before the report--a disgusting habit in a gun. The
menagerie was completed by the pompons, of which there were at least
three. This noisome beast always lurks in thick bush, whence it barks
chains of shell at the unsuspecting stranger. Fortunately its shell is
small, and it is as timid as it is poisonous.

Altogether, with three Long Toms, a 5-inch howitzer, Silent Susan, about
a dozen 12-pounders, four of our screw guns, and three Maxim automatics,
they had about two dozen guns on us. Against that we had two
47-inch--named respectively Lady Ann and Bloody Mary--four naval
12-pounders, thirty-six field-guns, the two remaining mountain guns, an
old 64-pounder, and a 3-inch quickfirer--these two on Caesar's Camp in
charge of the Durban Naval Volunteers--two old howitzers, and two
Maxim-Nordenfeldts taken at Krugersdorp in the Jameson raid, and retaken
at Elandslaagte,--fifty pieces in all.

On paper, therefore, we had a great advantage. But we had to economise
ammunition, not knowing when we should get more, and also to keep a
reserve of field-guns to assist any threatened point. Also their guns,
being newer, better pieces, mounted on higher ground, outranged ours. We
had more guns, but they were as useless as catapults: only the six naval
guns could touch Pepworth's Hill or Bulwan.

For these reasons we only fired, I suppose, one shell to their twenty,
or thereabouts; so that though we actually had far more guns, we yet
enjoyed all the sensations of a true bombardment.

What were they? That bombardments were a hollow terror I had always
understood; but how hollow, not till I experienced the bombardment of
Ladysmith. Hollow things make the most noise, to be sure, and this
bombardment could at times be a monstrous symphony indeed.

The first heavy day was November 3: while the troops were moving in and
out on the Van Keenen's road the shells traced an aerial cobweb all over
us. After that was a lull till the 7th, which was another clattering
day. November 8 brought a tumultuous morning and a still afternoon. The
9th brought a very tumultuous morning indeed; the 10th was calm; the
11th patchy; the 12th, Sunday.

It must be said that the Boers made war like gentlemen of leisure; they
restricted their hours of work with trade-unionist punctuality. Sunday
was always a holiday; so was the day a