[Illustration: THE BRITISH POSITION AT LADYSMITH, LOOKING NORTH TOWARDS
RIETFONTEIN AND THE NEWCASTLE ROAD]

_November 30._--Day breaks across white mists on the plain, and then
comes gorgeous sunshine, with a glow of colour all round, brilliant
orange in the east above Bulwaan, deepening to blood-red in the west
behind the rugged crest of Mount Tintwa and the pitted peaks of Mont aux
Sources. From daybreak onward there is heavy artillery fire on camp and
town from every gun the Boers have mounted. Our howitzers and the
"Meddler" began it with a merry little set-to between themselves, doing
no harm. Then Surprise Hill, Telegraph Hill, Rifleman's Ridge, Bulwaan,
and Lombard's Kop joined in, the last aiming straight for the hospital,
with its Red Cross flag. Two shells had fallen close to that building,
from which all haste was made to remove the helpless patients. Most of
them had been got out when the third shot came crashing into the largest
ward, and from among the ruins one dead man and nine freshly wounded
were taken. Rifle fire quickened then about Observation Hill, and
bullets flying overhead made many think that the Boers were coming on,
but it all died away into silence without further casualties on our
side. At night the column southward flashes another long signal on the
clouded sky, and Boer search-lights try to obliterate it by throwing
their feeble rays across the beam that shines like a comet athwart the
darkness above Tugela heights.

_December 1._--"Long Tom" of Pepworth's Hill, which has not fired since
"Lady Anne" silenced it days ago, is now reported to be cracked and
useless, but the Boers are preparing emplacements for another heavy
piece of ordnance on a flat-topped nether spur of Lombard's Kop, where
they have a persistently disagreeable 40-pounder already mounted. We do
nothing to prevent this increase of hostile artillery, but content