organise supplies and yet keep an
unruffled mind. The rest of the morning I sat with a company of the 60th
(K.R.R.) on the top of Cove Hill (another of the many Aldershot names).
The men had been lining the exposed edge of Observation Hill all night,
without any shelter, whilst the thick cold rain fell upon them. It was
raining still, and they lay about among the rocks and thorny mimosa
bushes in rather miserable condition.

It would be a good thing if the Army could be marched through Regent
Street as the men look this morning. It would teach people more about
war than a hundred pictures of plumed horsemen and the dashing charge.
The smudgy khaki uniforms soaked through and through, stained black and
green and dingy red with wet and earth and grass; the draggled
great-coats, heavy with rain and thick with mud; the heavy sopping
boots, the blackened, battered helmets; the blackened, battered faces
below them, unwashed and unshaved since the siege began; the eyes heavy
and bloodshot with sun and rain and want of sleep; the peculiar
smell--there is not much brass band and glory about us now.

At noon the mist lifted, and just before one the Boer guns opened fire
nearly all round the horseshoe, except that the Manchesters were left in
peace. I think only one new gun had been placed in position, but another
had been cleverly checked. As a rule, it has been our polite way to let
the Boers settle their guns comfortably in their places, and then to try
in vain to blow them out. Yesterday the enemy were fortifying a gun on
Star Hill, when one of our artillery captains splashed a shell right
into the new wall. We could see the Boer gunners running out on both
sides, and the fort has not been continued.

To-day "Long Tom's" shells were thrown pretty much at random about the
town. One blew a mule's head off close to the bank, and disembowelled a
second. One went into the "Scotch House" and cleared the shop. A third
pitched close to the Anglican Church, and brought the Archdeacon out of
burrow. But there was no real loss, except that one of the Naval Brigade
got a splinter in the forehead. My little house had another dose of
shrapnel, and on coming in I found a soldier digging up the bits in the
garden; but the Scotch owner drove him away for "interfering with the
mineral rights." At 3.30 the mist fell again, and there was very little
firing after 4. Out on the flat beyond the racecourse our men were
engaged in blowing up and bu