Ladysmith: The Diary of a Siege

This drama is getting too long for the modern stage, and so far the Dutch have obeyed none of the dramatic rules. To-day was one monotony of rain, and may be blotted out from th...

It has been a commonplace of the war that the Boers could cling to a position of their own choosing from behind stones, but would never venture to attack a position or fight in...

Just as we were lazily washing our clothes and otherwise enjoying the Sabbath rest and security at about eight in the morning, "Puffing Billy," of Bulwan, began breaking the Fou...

All was ready to receive another attack, but the Boers made no sign beyond the usual bombardment. One of the wounded--a Harrismith man--says there is a strong party in favour of...

We are sick of the siege. Enteric and dysentery are steadily increasing. Food for men and horses is short and nasty. Ammunition must be used with care. The longing for the Engli...

We have now been shut up nearly five weeks. Some 15,000 people or more have been living on a patch of ground roughly measuring three miles each way. On that patch of ground at t...

A day of furious and general attack. Just before five I was wakened by a shell blustering through the eucalyptus outside my window, and bursting in a gully beyond. "Lady Anne" a...

Good news came through the heliograph about General Gatacre's force at Dordrecht. There were rumours about Lord Methuen, too, for which Dr. Jameson was quoted as authority. But...

Twelve weeks to-day since Black Monday, when our isolation really began! A heliogram came from Buller to say all was going well, and in this evening's Orders we were officially...

This is Majuba Day, and in the afternoon the garrison was cheered by the news that Roberts had surrounded Cronje and compelled him to surrender. For ourselves, relief seems as f...

The only change to-day was the steady passage of Boers westward, to concentrate afresh round Taba Nyama. Their new laager up the Long Valley had disappeared. Large bodies of men...

The day was fairly quiet. Old "Bulwan Billy" did not fire at us at all, and there was no movement in the distant Boer camps, though the universal belief is that the enemy is con...

It was a fair morning yesterday, cool after rain, the thin clouds sometimes letting the sun look through. At half-past ten I was some six or seven miles out along the Newcastle...

The armistice lasted all day, except that the enemy threw two shells at a waggon going up the Helpmakaar road and knocked it to pieces, and, I hear, killed a man or two--I don't...

"Long Tom" opened fire at a quarter-past six from Pepworth Hill, and was replied to by the Naval Brigade. Just as I walked up to their big 4.7 in. gun on the kopje close to the...

Ladysmith breathes freely to-day, but a week ago she seemed likely to become another Lucknow. Of line battalions only the Liverpools were here, besides two batteries of field ar...

On Sunday we were all astir for a big battle. But no village Sabbath in the Highlands could have been quieter, though it might have been more devotional. We rode about as usual,...

If you want to "experience a shock," as the doctors say, be with the head of a column advancing leisurely along a familiar road only six miles from camp, and have a shell flung...

It is a week to-day since the Boers of the Transvaal and Free State began their combined invasion of Natal. So far all action has been on their side. They have crept down the pa...

A kaffir came in to-day, bringing the strange story that the old "Long Tom" of Pepworth Hill was hit full in the muzzle by "Lady Anne," that the charge inside him burst, the gun...

Late last Sunday night I found myself slowly crawling towards the front from Pretoria in a commandeered train crammed full of armed Boers and their horses. I had rushed from the...