But this morning the routine was changed.  Having waked me up as usual with the crash of shells close by on my left, the gun was turned down town, smashed into a camp or two without damage, and then suddenly whipped round on his pivot and sent a shell straight into the Gloucester lines, about 300 yards away to my right.  It pitched just on the top of a traverse at the foot of the low hill now held by the Devons.  The men were quite off their guard, busy with breakfast and sharing out the kettles.  In an instant five lay dead and twelve were wounded.  The shell burst so close that three of the dead were horribly scorched.  One got covered by a tarpaulin, and was not found at first.  His body was split open, one leg was off, his head was burnt and smashed to pulp.  The cries of the wounded told me at once what had happened.  Summoned by telephone, the dhoolies came quickly up and bore them away, together with the remains of the dead.  Three of the wounded died before the night.  Eight dead and nine wounded—­it is worse than the disaster to the King’s (Liverpools) almost exactly on the same spot a few weeks ago.  In the middle of the morning much the same thing nearly happened to the 5th Lancers.  The 6 in. gun on Telegraph Hill, usually more noisy than harmful, was banging away at the Old Camp and the Naval battery on Cove Hill, when one of the shells ricocheted off the hill-top, and plunged into the Lancers’ camp at the foot.  Four officers were hit, including the colonel, who had a bit of finger blown off, and a segment through both legs.  A sergeant lost an eye.  One officer ducked his head and got a fragment straight through his helmet.  The shell was a chance shot, but that made it no better.  The men are sick of being shot at like rabbits, and sicker still of running into rabbit holes for shelter.  The worst of all is that we can no longer reply for fear of wasting ammunition.

There was no sound of Buller’s guns all day.  I induced another Kaffir to make the attempt of running the Boer lines.  Mr. McCormick, a Colonial correspondent, also started.  I should go myself, but have no wish to be shut up in Pretoria for the rest of the campaign, cut off from all letters, and more useless even than I am here.  So I spent the afternoon with others, building a sand-bag fort round the tent where Mr. Steevens is to be nursed, beside the river bank.  The five o’clock shells came pretty close, pitching into the Light Horse camp and the main watering ford.  But the tent itself is fairly safe.  The feeding of the horses is our greatest immediate difficulty.  Every bit of edible green is being seized and turned to account.  I find vine-leaves a fair substitute for grass, but my horses are terribly hungry all the same.

     December 23, 1899.

The bombardment was violent at intervals, and some hundreds of shells must have been thrown at us.  But there was no method or concentration in the business.