A heavy gun was emplaced by the Boers to the front of the northward section of the defence, on a hill in the angle between the Bell Spruit and the railway to Harrismith.  The approach to it was commanded by Bell’s Kopje and Thornhill’s Kopje, but a Battalion of Rifles under Metcalfe wriggled in between them at midnight on December 11, without alarming the enemy, and almost reached the crest of the eminence which was thereafter known as Surprise Hill, before the Boers opened fire.  The assaulters encircled the emplacement, but could not find the gun.  In a little time it was discovered outside the work, and disabled, but not permanently.  The Boers on the flanking kopjes were now on the alert; and the battalion as it withdrew down the slope met in the darkness a small but determined detachment which had formed up athwart the line of retirement.  The obstacle was rushed with the bayonet, and the expedition returned to Ladysmith with a loss exceeding 12 per cent of its strength.

The gun raids were almost the only offensive action taken by the defence during the siege, and though successful as far as they went, they did not greatly reduce the strength of the enemy’s artillery and were not continued.  He had still more than a score of pieces with which he daily bombarded the town; but no attempt to assault it by a moving force was made for some weeks.  His confidence in the final issue was unimpaired; he had but to squat in his trenches worrying the garrison with shell fire, and the inevitable surrender must come.

His complacent view of the situation was manifested by his use of the besieging force as a depot which was from time to time called upon to furnish drafts for service elsewhere.  Joubert’s absence on the raid towards the south did not sensibly diminish the retaining power of the attack, and although the loss of several thousand Free State burghers who were transferred to Cronje’s command on the Modder or to Delarey’s at Colesberg was in part made up by a reinforcement of Transvaalers, the force sitting round Ladysmith had to assist in the defence of the line of the Tugela against Duller; yet, albeit weakened by that necessity, it was still able without much effort to pin White down to the banks of the Klip River.  The inactivity of the garrison, as well as the daily increasing hospital camp at Intombi under the shadow of Bulwana and the mournful processions to the cemetery hard by, showed that sickness, the waning physical and moral strength of those who were still on duty, and the expenditure of stores, supplies, and ammunition, were slowly impairing White’s power of resistance; and that the numbers of the besieging force, which later on Buller believed did not exceed 2,000 men, could be safely reduced.