view, while ours have been aimed directly at the enemy's batteries, or
at sangars, to which their gun-crews retire between the rounds; and
partly, if not mainly, because our naval guns fire common shell with
bursting charges of black powder, the effect of which--though not so
violent locally as that of the Boer shells, charged with melinite
explosive--is spread over a much wider area. It is not much
satisfaction, however, for the losses and worry we endure here to know
that the investing force suffers even more severely so long as it
continues to harass us while we remain inactively helpless.

The men were beginning to say that they had stood this sort of thing
long enough, when the measure of their discontent was filled to
overflowing this morning by a bombardment fiercer than ever. It opened
with the barking of "Pom-Poms" as early as half-past five, and ran
through the whole gamut from lowest bass of a big gun's boom to the
shrillest scream of smaller projectiles and the whip-like whistle of
shrapnel bullets lashing the air with so little intermission that within
two hours no less than seventy-five shells had burst in and about
Ladysmith camp. This was too much to be borne patiently, and every
soldier welcomed the order for an offensive movement, their only regret
being that infantry were to play no part in the affair. General
Brocklehurst, with a force of cavalry, Imperial Light Horse, and
artillery, moved out of camp soon after nine o'clock, taking the road
that leads westward and southward through the gap at Range Post. The
object of that movement was generally believed to be an attack oh
Blaauwbank, or Rifleman's Hill, as it is officially called, and the
capture of a Boer battery there, from which our defensive lines between
King's Post and Cove Redoubt had been repeatedly enfiladed. If
successful in driving the enemy back, our troops would then swing round
to their left and go for the big gun on Middle Hill, against which