Not all in Ladysmith are of this heroic temper, but very few make open parade of fear if they have any, and though precautions are taken against exposure to unnecessary risks, there is no sign of panic yet.  Soldiers, every one of whom may be very valuable as a fighting unit before this siege closes, are ordered to protect themselves by such shelter trenches or bomb-proofs as can be constructed out of loose stones, sandbags, forage bales, or other material that lies ready at hand.  The works have to be built under shell-fire, but when finished they will be an inestimable advantage to regiments that occupy day and night hill-crests where they might be enfiladed by long-range artillery fire.  That risk must, of course, be taken if the enemy’s riflemen should harden their hearts for a determined frontal attack upon any position supported by flank fire from guns, but until such a critical moment arrives the men not actually on duty as sentries or outlying pickets will be little harassed by bursting shells or flying splinters or showers of shrapnel bullets, if they dig themselves good pits to lie in, with sufficiently thick coverings overhead.

The 1st Devon battalion, which, as one of the best here, and trusted for its steadiness in all circumstances, was given the most vulnerable point to hold, has busied itself in the formation of works that promise to make Helpmakaar Hill impregnable, though its long, low spur is exposed to artillery fire from Bulwaan and Lombard’s Kop and the scrub-screened nek between them.  The works there show what can be done under difficulties by a good regiment toiling cheerfully to carry out the orders of good officers.  The original breastworks were traced by engineers who had in view rather the necessity of throwing up light defences against rifle fire than the probability that these works would be battered at by heavy artillery from one side and taken in reverse from another.  It soon became evident that the entrenchments if left in that state would be untenable, and yet they could not be abandoned without serious risk that Boers might then be able to advance under cover near enough to threaten other posts, if not to command by rifle fire, within twelve hundred yards or so, the heights on which naval guns are mounted.  Only by holding the contours of extreme spurs on Helpmakaar Hill could the Devons hope to sweep by rifle fire a wide zone of slightly undulating veldt, and thus command all possible approaches from Lombard’s Kop or Bulwaan in that direction.  So they stuck generally to the lines traced by engineers for their outer defences, but deepened the trenches, widened the banks in front of them, built bomb-proof traversers overlaid with balks and earth to neutralise the effects of enfilading fire, and then began to form for themselves dug-out huts in which to sleep, with solid earth roofs supported on railway sleepers.

All this means enormous labour, carried on frequently under a galling cannonade from the enemy’s smaller guns, and interrupted occasionally by the necessity of having to keep down the rifle-fire that comes from a distant kopje, while standing on the front of these works.