“Puffing Billy” was the appropriate name bestowed on this new enemy by Colonel Rhodes, who has an amusing faculty for applying quaintly descriptive phrases to every fresh development in this state of siege.  I am told on high authority that the word “siege” is not quite applicable to our case here, but if the Boers are not sitting down before Ladysmith in a very leisurely way, intent upon keeping us under bombardment as long as they may choose to stay, I do not know the meaning of such movements.  It was we who provoked “Puffing Billy” to his first angry roar by a trial shot from one of our big naval guns into the Bulwaan battery.  “Long Tom” presently joined in the chorus, and it took our two 4.7 quick-firers all their time to keep down that cross-fire.  Though “Lady Anne’s” twin-sister had been mounted some days, her voice was seldom heard, until this morning, when, after a few rounds, “Long Tom” paid silent homage to her sway, and in celebration of that temporary knock-out, Captain Lambton christened his new pet “Princess Victoria,” but the bluejackets called it by another name, to indicate their faith in its destructive effect.

It was interesting to watch these weapons at work.  Their gunners would wait until they saw a flash from “Long Tom” or “Puffing Billy” and then fire, their shells getting home first by two or three seconds, owing to the greater velocity imparted by cordite charges.  Soon after ten o’clock the enemy’s artillery fire from different directions grew brisker.  The damage, whatever it may have been, inflicted on “Long Tom,” or his crew, having been made good under cover of a white flag, which the Boers seem to think they are at liberty to use whenever it suits them, Rietfontein called to Bulwaan, and Blaauwbank in the west echoed the dull boom that came from the distant flat-topped hill in the east.  Then along our main positions, against the Leicesters and Rifles on one side, and the Manchesters on another, an attack by rifles developed quickly.

Intermittently these skirmishes lasted most of the day, our enemy never pressing his attack home, but contenting himself with long-range shooting from good cover.  Neither heavy guns nor small arms did much damage.  Major Grant, R.E., of the Intelligence Staff, was slightly wounded as he sat coolly sketching the scene of hostilities as he saw it from the front of Caesar’s Camp.  A lieutenant of the Manchesters and three men of the Leicester Regiment were also hit by rifle bullets or shell splinters, but none very seriously.

CHAPTER V

THE FIRST BOER ASSAULT

Joubert’s boast—­The preliminaries of attack—­Shells in the town—­A simultaneous advance—­Observation Hill threatened—­A wary enemy—­A prompt repulse—­Attack on Tunnel Hill—­The colour-sergeant’s last words—­Manchesters under fire—­Prone behind boulders—­A Royal salute—­The Prince of Wales’s birthday—­Stretching the Geneva Convention—­The