ground, not to speak of horses' legs. The
shell burst on striking a horse, they say (it was shrapnel), and threw
forwards. While the Carbineers were carrying away one of their dead
another shell burst close by. They rightly dropped the body and lay
flat. The only fragment which struck at all almost cut the dead man in
half. Another shell later in the day killed a Kaffir woman and her
husband in a back garden off the main street. Several women have died
from premature childbirth owing to shock.

Most of my day was again spent in trying to get a Kaffir runner for a
telegram, but none would go. My last two had failed. All are getting
frightened. In the evening I rode out to Waggon Hill and found "Lady
Anne" and the 12lb. naval gun had gone back to their old homes. They are
not wanted to keep open the approach for Buller now, and perhaps Captain
Lambton was afraid the position might be rushed.

_December 19, 1899._

Another black day. Details of Buller's defeat at Colenso began to leak
out and discouraged us all. It would be much better if the truth about
any disaster, no matter how serious, were officially published. Now
every one is uncertain and apprehensive. We waste hours in questions and
speculations. To-day there was something like despair throughout the
camp. The Boers are putting up new guns on Gun Hill in place of those we
destroyed. Through a telescope at the Heliograph Station I watched the
men working hard at the sangar. Two on the face of the hill were
evidently making a wire entanglement. On Pepworth Hill the sappers think
they are putting up one of the 8.7 in. guns, four of which the Boers are
known to have ordered, though it is not certain whether they received
them. They throw a 287lb. shell. We are all beginning to feel the pinch
of hunger. Bit by bit every little luxury we had stored up has
disappeared. Nothing to eat or drink is now left in any of the shops;
only a little twist tobacco.

What is even worse, the naval guns have too little ammunition to answer
the enemy's fire; so that the Boers can shell us at ease and draw in
nearer when they like. The sickness increases terribly. Major Donegan
sent out thirty-six cases of enteric to Intombi Camp from the divisional
troops' hospital alone. Probably over fifty went in all. Everything now
depends on Buller's winning a great victory. It seems incredible that
two British armies should be within twenty miles of each other and
powerless to move.