January 23, 1900.

Soon after dawn our own guns along the northern defences from Tunnel Hill to King’s Post woke me with an extraordinary din.  They could not have made more noise about another general attack, but there was no rifle fire.  Getting up very unwillingly at 4.30 a.m., I climbed up Junction Hill and looked up the Broad valley, but not a single Boer was in sight.  The firing went on till about six, and then abruptly ceased.  I heard afterwards that Buller had asked us to keep as many Boers here as possible.  I suppose we expended about 200 rounds of our precious ammunition.  A cool and cloudy sky made the heliograph useless, but in the night the clouds had served to reflect the brilliance of Buller’s searchlight.

So far the Boers have passed us all round in strategy, but in searchlights they are nowhere, though Bulwan makes a grand attempt.  All day from King’s Post or Waggon Hill I watched the Great Plain of Taba Nyama as usual.  Now and then we could see the shells bursting, but the Boer camps have not moved.

The ration coffee has come to an end, except a reserve of 3 cwt, which would hardly last a day.  The tea ration is again reduced.  The flour mixed with mealy meal makes a very sour bread.  The big 5th Lancers horses are so hungry that at night they eat not only their picket ropes but each other’s manes and tails.  They are so weak that they fall three or four times in an hour if the men ride them.  Enteric is not quite so bad as it was, but dysentery increases.  The numbers of military sick alone at Intombi, not counting all the sick in the camps and hospitals here, are 2,040 to-day.

     January 24, 1900.

The entire interest of the day was centred on Taba Nyama—­that black mountain, commanding the famous drift in its front and the stretch of plain behind.  It is fifteen miles away.  From Observation Hill one could see the British shells bursting along this ridge all morning, as well as in the midst of the Boer tents half-way down the double peaks, and at the foot of the hill.  The firing began at 3 a.m., and lasted with extreme severity till noon, the average of audible shells being at least five a minute.  We could also see the white bursts of shrapnel from our field artillery.  In the afternoon I went to Waggon Hill, and with the help of a telescope made out a large body of men—­about 1,000 I suppose—­creeping up the distant crest and spreading along the summit.  I could only conjecture them to be English from their presence on the exposed ridge, and from their regular though widely extended formation.  They were hardly visible except as a series of black points.  Thunderclouds hung over the Drakensberg behind, and the sun was obscured.  Yet I had no doubt in my own mind that the position was won.  It was five o’clock, or a little later.

Others saw large parties of Boers fleeing for life up dongas and over plains, the phantom carriage-and-four driving hastily north-westward after an urgent warning, and other such melodramatic incidents, which escaped my notice.  The position of the falling shells, and the movement of those minute black specks were to me enough of drama for one day’s life.