is regiment with
pride.

'How many?'

'About four hundred and fifty.'

'Out of a thousand?'

'Well, out of about nine hundred.'

This war has fallen heavily on some regiments. Scarcely any has suffered
more severely, none has won greater distinction, than the Dublin
Fusiliers--everywhere at the front--Dundee, Lombard's Kop, Colenso,
Chieveley, Colenso again, and even here at Spion Kop. Half the regiment,
more than half the officers killed or wounded or prisoners.

But the survivors were as cheery as ever.

'Do these shells catch anyone?'

'Only two or three an hour. They don't come always: every half-hour we
get half a dozen. That last one killed an officer in the next regiment.
Rather bad luck, picking an officer out of all these men--only one
killed to-day so far, a dozen wounded.'

I inquired how much more time remained before the next consignment of
shells was due. They said about ten minutes. I thought that would just
suit me, and bade them good morning, for I have a horror of being killed
when not on duty; but Captain Brooke was anxious to climb to the top and
examine the Boer position, and since we had come so far it was perhaps
worth while going on. So we did, and with great punctuality the shells
arrived.

We were talking to the officers of another regiment when they began. Two
came in quick succession over the eastern wall of the valley and then
one over the western. All three burst--two on impact, one in the air. A
fourth ripped along a stone shelter behind which skirmishers were
firing. A fifth missed the valley altogether and screeched away into the
plain clear of the hills. The officers and men were quite callous. They
scarcely troubled to look up. The soldiers went on smoking or playing
cards or sleeping as if nothing had happened. Personally I felt no
inclination to any of these pursuits, and I thought to sit and wait
indefinitely, for the caprice of one of these shrieking iron devils
would be most trying to anyone. But apparently you can get accustomed
to anything. The regiment where the officer had been killed a few
minutes before was less cheerful and callous. The little group of
officers crouching in the scanty shelter had seen one of their number
plucked out of their midst and slain--uselessly as it seemed. They
advised us to take cover, which we would gladly have done had there been
any worth speaking of; for at this moment the Boers discharged their
Vickers-Maxim gun--the 'pom-pom'--