Most of my day was again spent in trying to get a Kaffir runner for a telegram, but none would go.  My last two had failed.  All are getting frightened.  In the evening I rode out to Waggon Hill and found “Lady Anne” and the 12lb. naval gun had gone back to their old homes.  They are not wanted to keep open the approach for Buller now, and perhaps Captain Lambton was afraid the position might be rushed.

     December 19, 1899.

Another black day.  Details of Buller’s defeat at Colenso began to leak out and discouraged us all.  It would be much better if the truth about any disaster, no matter how serious, were officially published.  Now every one is uncertain and apprehensive.  We waste hours in questions and speculations.  To-day there was something like despair throughout the camp.  The Boers are putting up new guns on Gun Hill in place of those we destroyed.  Through a telescope at the Heliograph Station I watched the men working hard at the sangar.  Two on the face of the hill were evidently making a wire entanglement.  On Pepworth Hill the sappers think they are putting up one of the 8.7 in. guns, four of which the Boers are known to have ordered, though it is not certain whether they received them.  They throw a 287lb. shell.  We are all beginning to feel the pinch of hunger.  Bit by bit every little luxury we had stored up has disappeared.  Nothing to eat or drink is now left in any of the shops; only a little twist tobacco.

What is even worse, the naval guns have too little ammunition to answer the enemy’s fire; so that the Boers can shell us at ease and draw in nearer when they like.  The sickness increases terribly.  Major Donegan sent out thirty-six cases of enteric to Intombi Camp from the divisional troops’ hospital alone.  Probably over fifty went in all.  Everything now depends on Buller’s winning a great victory.  It seems incredible that two British armies should be within twenty miles of each other and powerless to move.

I cannot induce a Kaffir runner to start now.  Even the Intelligence Officer cannot do it.  The heliograph has failed me, too.  Sunday’s message has not gone, and this afternoon was clouded with storms and rain.  The temperature fell 30 deg..  Yesterday it was 102 deg.; the day before 106 deg. in the shade.

     December 20, 1899.

From dawn till about seven the mutter of distant guns was heard near Colenso.  But no news came through, for the sky was clouded nearly all day long.  The new 4.7 in. howitzer which the Boers have put up on Surprise Hill opened fire in the morning, and will be as dangerous as its predecessor which we blew up.  From every point of the compass it shelled hard nearly all day.  I connect this feverish activity with the apparition of a chaise and four seen driving round the Boer outposts, and to-day quite visible on the Bulwan.  Four outriders accompany it, and queer little flags are set up where it halts.  Can the