‘Come in,’ says a Tommy of the Grenadiers who has come to our hill for orders; and indeed it sounds exactly like some one knocking at a street door.  Now the under-current of rifle fire becomes horrible in its rapidity.  Can anything in that hell down there be left alive?  Suddenly their plucky big gun opens again and sends several well-directed shells among our batteries.  The naval guns turn their attention to it immediately.  You can see the little, quick glints of fire low along the ground at each discharge, and then the bursting shell just over the big gun on the river-bank.”

“10 A.M.—­Both sides are sticking to the business desperately.  The rattle of rifle-fire is one low roar.  The air shudders and vibrates under it.  Now the naval guns draw towards the river again; so do the rest of our batteries.  Things can’t stand at this tension.  The big gun speaks again, but wildly; its shell bursts far out on the plain.”

“10.30.—­The aspect of the place is now awful.  The breeze has died a little and the smoke hangs more.  It is enveloped in a haze of yellow and blue vapour, partly from bursting shell and partly firing guns.  Those volumes of smoke, with gleams of fire every now and then, make it look like some busy manufacturing town, and the blows and throbs with which the place resounds convey the same idea.”

“11 A.M.—­The fight is dogged as ever but slower.  There are cessations of firing altogether, and it is comparatively slow when continued.  The stubbornness of the enemies’ resistance to our attack and to the fearful shelling they have had is calling forth expressions of astonishment and admiration from the onlooking officers on the hill.”

“As the circle narrowed and our attack concentrated on the village and bridge, we all thought that the end was coming, and, on a lull of the firing about 11.30 the Major even exclaimed, ’There, I think that’s the end, and I can only say thank God for it.’  But he was wrong.  He had scarcely said it when that indomitable heavy gun of theirs, re-supplied with gunners, began again; again the Naval guns, on a tested range, crack their shrapnel right in its face; the batteries all open and soon the whole orchestra is thundering again.  That dreadful muttering, the ‘rub-a-dub, a-dub-a-dub, a-dub-a-dub’ (say it as fast as you can) of the rifles keeps on; through all the noise of fire, the sharp, quick bark of the Boer Maxim-Nordenfelt sounds at intervals and the mingled smoke and dust lies in a haze along the river.”

It was, all through, almost entirely an infantry action, but about the middle of the day we were sent down to the river on the Boer right, as parties of the enemy were thought to be breaking away in that direction.  And here, I am sorry to say, poor Parker who had served in the Greek-Turkish war, and used to beguile our long night marches with stories of the Thessalian hills and the courage of the Turks, was hit, it is feared mortally.  The fight itself continued with