spruit;
about fifty yards in front were strips of high and low wire
entanglement, making it practically impossible for the enemy to rush
the post at night. By night we had to man two sangars placed on the
hills on each side of the spruit. I know nothing more productive of
bad language than visiting the sentries on those hills in the dark,
scrambling over the hugest boulders up a hill like the side of a
house. We were not very comfortable at first, there being absolutely
no shelter from sun or rain, but after about a week we managed to
obtain a couple of railway tarpaulins, and rigged up shelters on the
sides of the spruit. We were all very lucky in not getting hit, as
the enemy had a nasty habit of bursting shrapnel over the place and
sending common shell on to the crests, which produced a shower of
rocks, splinters and stones; but although we were in the spruit for
seven weeks with absolutely no cover, not a man in the detachment was
hit. During our stay in the spruit our rations were exceptionally
good, as we got extras in the way of bacon, jam, chocolate, &c.

The night-work at this time was very hard, as everybody not actually
on outpost duty had to work at the trenches from 6.30 in the evening
till 3 a.m. the next morning. Sleep being impossible in the day-time
owing to the heat and a plague of flies, this continual night-work
told on the men severely. On November 9th the enemy made a feeble
attempt at capturing the place, and came on in considerable numbers
against Observation Hill, but were easily repulsed. On the night of
December 7th-8th an attack was made on Gun Hill, where the Boers had a
'Long Tom' and a five-inch howitzer, besides one or two small guns.
These guns had been annoying us very greatly for the past three weeks,
and we were all delighted in the early morning when we heard the
attack had been successful, and the guns blown up. We none of us knew
anything about this affair till it was over. I was visiting our posts
about 2.30 a.m. when I saw two large flashes on Gun Hill; on listening
I could not hear any shells travelling or bursting, so concluded the
enemy were amusing themselves by firing blank charges. It was not till
we saw our column returning at dawn that we solved the problem. We
found the spruit very unpleasant in wet weather, as the water used to
come down like a mountain torrent and wash away bits of our wall and
shelters; after wet nights we used to spend our time in digging our
belon