December 28, 1899.

The night was wet and pitchy dark.  Only by the help of the lightning I had stumbled and plunged home to bed, when at about eleven a perfect storm of rifle-fire suddenly swept along the ridges at our end of the town.  Rushing out I saw the edges of the hills twinkle with lines of flashes right away to Gun Hill and Bulwan.  Alarmed at the darkness, and hearing strange sounds in the rain the Boers had taken a scare and were blazing away at vacancy, in terror of another night attack.  The uproar lasted about five minutes.  Then all was quiet until, as dawn was breaking, “Lady Anne” and “Bloody Mary” shook me off my camp bed with the crash of seven reports in quick succession just over my roof.  For some days it had been an idea of Captain Lambton’s to catch the Boer gunners on Bulwan just as they were going up to their big gun, or were occupied with early breakfast.  Five of our shells burst on the face of the hill where many Boers spend the night, probably to protect the gun.  The two last fell on the top, close to the gun itself.  The latter did not fire at all to-day, and I saw the Boers standing about it in groups evidently excited and disturbed.

The bombardment continued much as usual in other parts, and I spent the afternoon with the 69th Battery on Leicester Post, watching Major Wing reply to the new howitzer on Surprise Hill.  Rain fell heavily at times, and the Boers never like firing in the wet.

The day was chiefly marked by Colonel Stoneman’s visit to Intombi Camp to inquire into the reported scandals.  He thinks that the worst of the corruption and swindling is already over, being killed by the very scandal.  But he found a general want of organisation in the distribution of food and other stores.  There are now 2,557 inhabitants of the camp, of whom 1,015 are sick and wounded soldiers.  Of late the numbers have been increasing by forty or fifty a day, allowing for those who return or die.  The graves to-day number eighty-three, and a gang of forty Kaffirs is always digging.  Outside the military, the majority of the refugees are Kaffirs and coolies, the white civilians only numbering 600 or 700.  Colonel Stoneman had all, except the sick, paraded in groups, and assigned separate tasks to each—­nursing for the whites, digging and sanitation for the Kaffirs, cooking and skilled labour for the coolies.  One important condition he made—­every one required to work is also required to take his day’s wage.  The medical authority has objected to certain improvements on the ground of expense, but, as Colonel Stoneman says, what will England care about a few thousands at such a crisis in her history?  Or what would she say if we allowed her sick and wounded to die in discomfort for the want of a little money?  By to-morrow all the sick will have beds and even sheets, food will be distributed on a better organised plan, and civilians will be raised from a two-months’ slough of feeding, sleeping, grumbling, and general swinishness unredeemed even by shells.