commanded the long bare nek. Two other guns, the Maxim-Nordenfelts of
Elandslaagte, manned by a comparatively weak detachment, took up a
position on their own account at the foot of King's Post near our old
permanent, but now disused, camp, whence they could bring a fire to bear
on the same point. All tried a few percussion shells by way of testing
the range and then turned to the use of shrapnel, which, admirably
timed, burst just beyond the nek, searching its reverse slopes and
enfilading the railway ravine with a hail of bullets, where apparently
the Boers must have been caught in some numbers. At any rate they are
said to have lost heavily there, and from that time the attack or rather
fusilade directed against Observation Hill began to slacken. We had not
many men hit considering that the skirmish had begun soon after daybreak
and continued with little cessation up to nine o'clock, when the Rifle
Brigade reported three wounded, one being young Lieutenant Lethbridge,
who is so badly injured that recovery in his case can hardly be hoped
for.

We had not, however, done with the enemy by repulsing him at one point.
His big guns opened again presently from Blaauwbank and Rietfontein to
the west and north. A smaller battery on Long Hill echoed the deep boom
from "Long Tom," who was carrying on a duel with our naval gun, and
throwing shells over the town, to burst very near Sir George White's
headquarters. Field-guns from the nek near Lombard's Kop joined in
chorus, shooting with effect on Tunnel Hill, held by the Liverpools,
several of whom were hit. Colour-Sergeant Macdonald went out of the
bomb-proof to mark where one shell had struck, when another burst on the
same spot, and he fell terribly mangled by jagged fragments of iron. His
comrades rushed to aid him, but he died in their arms, saying simply,
"What a pity it was I went out to see." In truth the shells did not want
looking for to-day. They were falling in rapid succession from one end