clouds of white smoke. For their big shells (6.3 in.) are
just thirty years old, and the guns themselves have reached the years of
discretion. They fired by signal over the end of Waggon Hill in front of
them, and it was difficult to judge their effect. The other great event
was the kindling of a great veldt fire at the foot of Pepworth Hill, in
such a quarter that the smoke completely hid "Long Tom" for two or three
hours of the morning. Captain Lambton at once detected the trick, and
sent two shells from "Lady Anne" to check it. But it was none the less
successful. There could be little doubt "Long Tom" was on the move,
"doing a guy," the soldiers said. We hoped he was packing up for
Pretoria.

In the evening Colonel Stoneman held the first of his Shakespeare
reading parties, and again we found how keenly a month of shell-fire
intensifies the literary sense.

_November 30, 1899._

At night the Boer searchlight near Bester's, north-west of the town,
swept the positions by Range Post, the enemy having been informed by
spies (as usual) that we intended a forward movement before dawn. Three
battalions with cavalry and guns were to have advanced on to the open
ground beyond Range Post, and again attack the Boer position on
Bluebank, where there are now two guns. The movement was to prepare the
way for the approach of any relieving force up the Maritzburg road, but
about midnight it was countermanded. Accurately informed as the Boers
always are, they apparently had not heard of this change from any of the
traitors in town, and before sunrise they began creeping up nearer to
our positions by the Newcastle road on the north. They hoped either to
rush the place, or to keep us where we were. The 13th Battery, stationed
at the railway cutting, opened upon them, and the pickets of the
Gloucesters and the Liverpools checked them with a very heavy fire. As I
watched the fighting from the hill above my cottage, the sun appeared
over Bulwan, and a great gun fired upon us with a cloud of purple smoke.
A few minutes after there came the sharp report, the screaming rush and
loud explosion, which hitherto have marked "Long Tom" alone. Our
suspicions of yesterday were true, and Pepworth Hill knows him no more.
He now reigns on Little Bulwan, sometimes called Gun Hill, below
Lombard's Kop. His range is nearer, he can even reach the Manchesters'
sangars with effect, and he is far the most formidable of the guns that
torment us.