and a few moments after this shot, another on to his parapet. Boers were
afterwards seen carrying litters away from the work. This big gun never
fired again during the siege, but the Boers patched him up and he lived
to do good work for them against General Buller in his advance north to
Lydenburg, and the Boers finally blew him up in front of the battalion
near Waterval, in the Lydenburg district, when engaged with a column
under General Walter Kitchener.

For the next few days nothing of consequence occurred beyond the usual
shell fire, varied at intervals from day to night time. It rained in
torrents most of the time, and the men were continually wet through.
They however kept very fit, and there were very few in hospital.

An amusing incident occurred on the 17th. Good targets being scarce the
Boers continually fired shell at any moving or stationary object they
could catch sight of--sometimes at a single scout. They often fired
their pompom at a range of about 5000 yards at the vultures feeding on
the dead horses under Devon Post. On this day they sent three 40-lb.
shells at an old man named Brown who contracted for the dead horses.
Brown used to take these out into the open in full view of the Boers, to
some flat ground under the Post, and there skin them at his leisure. The
old man would take his load out once a day in a four-horsed cart. If he
was seen by the Boers he would come back at a gallop pursued by Boer
shells. This time he came back on three wheels, much to the amusement of
Section A of the defences; the fourth wheel had come off and he was in
too great a hurry to readjust it, and it was in consequence left behind.
The old man was never hit.

On November 20th the Boers mounted some more guns on Bulwana and also on
Umbrella Tree Hill, which lay in the Nek between Bulwana and Gun Hill.
Colonel Knox ordered a dummy battery to be made at night on the further
side of the Klip River and out in the open. Wooden imitation guns and
imitation gunners were erected, and these were worked with a string by a
gunner concealed in the bank of the river.

Captain Kincaid-Smith, with the two Maxim-Nordenfeldt guns captured at
Elandslaagte, of which he was now in charge, was to open fire from Devon
Post on to the Boer guns newly placed on Umbrella Tree Hill, and as he
was perfectly concealed and fired smokeless powder, it was supposed that
the Boers would imagine that the firing came from the new dummy battery
just er