much ammunition with perceptible effect on the brown boulders and
presumably on anything animate that might be hidden behind them; we
watched many Boers gallop away in haste across the plain, as if unable
to stand the leaden hail longer, and one of our batteries advancing
boldly got into position, whence it should have enfiladed that of the
enemy and wrought havoc among their horses if any were concealed in the
adjacent hollows. What effect the terrific shrapnel fire really produced
we had no means of knowing. Hardly a Boer showed himself while that
hurricane of bullets fell, but when General Brocklehurst meditated an
assault on the hill his troops were met by a furious rifle fire. The
ninety Imperial Light Horsemen of Colonel Edwardes's command were
obviously too few to dislodge the Boers from the ground they had held so
stubbornly. Further waste of artillery ammunition seemed useless, and
the time for employing cavalry to any purpose had not come. We therefore
had the chagrin of watching another force retire without accomplishing
its object, and most of us felt from that moment grave doubts whether
another such chance of breaking the bonds that envelop us could come
again until reinforcements were at hand for the relief of Ladysmith. As
our troops withdrew they were shelled right and left by Boer guns that
had been almost silent until then. Our batteries, aided by Captain
Kinnaird-Smith's two Maxim-Nordenfelts, covered the retirement, but they
could not put Surprise Hill out of action, or even attempt a reply to
the redoubtable "Long Tom" of Pepworth's Hill, who on this occasion
surpassed himself by throwing three shells in succession on the road by
Range Post Gap from a distance that must be well over 9000 yards. The
bit of hilly road where these shells fell and burst is no more than
fifty yards long by fifteen wide, and could not have been visible to
gunners five or six miles off without the aid of telescopic sights. Yet
the aim was so accurate that one shell fell between two hussar squadrons
and another just in rear of a battery, but without hitting man, horse,