The four 12-pounder field-guns on Bulwana—­I say four, because one day there were four; but the Boers continually shifted their lighter guns from hill to hill—­were very different.  These creatures are stealthy in their habits, lurking among woods, firing smokeless powder with very little flash; consequently they are very difficult guns to locate.  Their favourite diet appeared to be balloons; or, failing them, the Devons in the Helpmakaar Road or the Manchesters in Caesar’s Camp.  Both of these they enfiladed; also they peppered the roads whenever troops were visible moving in or out.

Altogether they were very judiciously handled, though erring perhaps in not firing persistently enough at any one target.  But, despite their great altitude, the range—­at least 6000 yards—­and the great height at which they burst their time shrapnel made them also comparatively harmless.

There were also one or two of their field-guns opposite the Manchesters on the flat-topped hill, one, I fancy, with Long Tom on Pepworth’s Hill, and a few others on the northern part of Lombard’s Kop and on Surprise Hill to the north-westward.

Westward, on Telegraph Hill, was a gun which appeared to prey exclusively on cattle.  I am afraid it was one of our own mountain guns turned cannibal.  The cattle, during the siege, had of course to pasture on any waste land inside the lines they could find, and gathered in dense, distractingly noisy herds; but though this gun was never tired of firing on the mobs, I do not think he ever got more than one calf.

There was a gun on Lombard’s Kop called Silent Susan—­so called because the shell arrived before the report—­a disgusting habit in a gun.  The menagerie was completed by the pompons, of which there were at least three.  This noisome beast always lurks in thick bush, whence it barks chains of shell at the unsuspecting stranger.  Fortunately its shell is small, and it is as timid as it is poisonous.

Altogether, with three Long Toms, a 5-inch howitzer, Silent Susan, about a dozen 12-pounders, four of our screw guns, and three Maxim automatics, they had about two dozen guns on us.  Against that we had two 47-inch—­named respectively Lady Ann and Bloody Mary—­four naval 12-pounders, thirty-six field-guns, the two remaining mountain guns, an old 64-pounder, and a 3-inch quickfirer—­these two on Caesar’s Camp in charge of the Durban Naval Volunteers—­two old howitzers, and two Maxim-Nordenfeldts taken at Krugersdorp in the Jameson raid, and retaken at Elandslaagte,—­fifty pieces in all.

On paper, therefore, we had a great advantage.  But we had to economise ammunition, not knowing when we should get more, and also to keep a reserve of field-guns to assist any threatened point.  Also their guns, being newer, better pieces, mounted on higher ground, outranged ours.  We had more guns, but they were as useless as catapults:  only the six naval guns could touch Pepworth’s Hill or Bulwan.