under a drifting sky, with peeps of a quarter moon, over a mimosa-shadowed plain.  At last in front of them there loomed a dark mass—­it was Gun Hill, from which one of the great Creusots had plagued them.  A strong support (four hundred men) was left at the base of the hill, and the others, one hundred Imperials, one hundred Borders and Carabineers, ten Sappers, crept upwards with Major Henderson as guide.  A Dutch outpost challenged, but was satisfied by a Dutch-speaking Carabineer.  Higher and higher the men crept, the silence broken only by the occasional slip of a stone or the rustle of their own breathing.  Most of them had left their boots below.  Even in the darkness they kept some formation, and the right wing curved forward to outflank the defence.  Suddenly a Mauser crack and a spurt of flame—­then another and another!  ’Come on, boys!  Fix bayonets!’ yelled Karri Davies.  There were no bayonets, but that was a detail.  At the word the gunners were off, and there in the darkness in front of the storming party loomed the enormous gun, gigantic in that uncertain light.  Out with the huge breech-block!  Wrap the long lean muzzle round with a collar of gun-cotton!  Keep the guard upon the run until the work is done!  Hunter stood by with a night light in his hand until the charge was in position, and then, with a crash which brought both armies from their tents, the huge tube reared up on its mountings and toppled backwards into the pit.  A howitzer lurked beside it, and this also was blown into ruin.  The attendant Maxim was dragged back by the exultant captors, who reached the town amid shoutings and laughter with the first break of day.  One man wounded, the gallant Henderson, is the cheap price for the best-planned and most dashing exploit of the war.  Secrecy in conception, vigour in execution—­they are the root ideas of the soldier’s craft.  So easily was the enterprise carried out, and so defective the Boer watch, that it is probable that if all the guns had been simultaneously attacked the Boers might have found themselves without a single piece of ordnance in the morning. [Footnote:  The destruction of the Creusot was not as complete as was hoped.  It was taken back to Pretoria, three feet were sawn off the muzzle, and a new breech-block provided.  The gun was then sent to Kimberley, and it was the heavy cannon which arrived late in the history of that siege and caused considerable consternation among the inhabitants.]

On the same morning (December 9th) a cavalry reconnaissance was pushed in the direction of Pepworth Hill.  The object no doubt was to ascertain whether the enemy were still present in force, and the terrific roll of the Mausers answered it in the affirmative.  Two killed and twenty wounded was the price which we paid for the information.  There had been three such reconnaissances in the five weeks of the siege, and it is difficult to see what advantage they gave or how they are to be justified.  Far be it for the civilian to dogmatise upon such matters, but one can repeat, and to the best of one’s judgment endorse, the opinion of the vast majority of officers.