On hearing of
his disappearance, Mr. Hutton, of Reuter's, and I asked leave to go out
to the Boer camp to inquire after him. But the General was wroth, and
would not listen to the proposal.

_December 4, 1899._

This morning the General offered the use of the heliograph to all
correspondents in rotation by ballot. Messages were to be limited to
thirty words. One could say little more than that we are doing as well
as can be expected under the circumstances. But the sun did not come out
all day, and not a single word got through.

In the afternoon I rode out to Waggon Hill, south-west of our position,
to call upon the two howitzers. They are heavy squat guns about twenty
years old, their shells being marked 1880, though they are said in
reality to date from 1869. They were brought up from Port Elizabeth
where the Volunteers used them, and certainly they have done fine
service here. Concealed in the hollow of a hill, they are invisible to
the enemy, and after many trials have now exactly got the range of the
great 6 in. gun on Middle Hill. At any moment they can plump their
shells right into his sangar, and the Boer gunners are frightened to
work there. In fact, they have as effectually silenced that gun as if
they had smashed it to pieces. They are worked by the Royal Artillery,
two dismounted squadrons of the I.L.H. acting as escort or support. Them
I found on picket at the extreme end of the hill. They told me they had
seen large numbers of Boers moving slowly with cattle and waggons
towards the Free State passes. The Boers whom I saw were going in just
the opposite direction, towards Colenso. I counted twenty-seven waggons
with a large escort creeping steadily to the south along some invisible
road. They were carrying provisions or the ammunition to fight our
relieving column.

We hear to-day there will be no attempt to relieve us till the 15th, if
then. A Natal newspaper, with extracts from the Transvaal _Standard and
Diggers' News_, brought in yesterday, exaggerates our situation almost
as much as the Boers themselves. If all Englishmen now besieged were
asked why most they desired relief, there is hardly one would not reply,
"For the English mail!"

CHAPTER XII

THE NIGHT SURPRISE ON GUN HILL

_December 5, 1899._

We have now been shut up nearly five weeks. Some 15,000 people or more
have been living on a patch of ground roughly measuring three miles each
way. On that patch of ground