The Record of a Regiment of the Line | Page 9

able-bodied
male civilian inhabitants of Ladysmith, were moved into the neutral
camp.
On November 6th and 7th, with the exception of a shell or two, things
were quiet on Devon Post, but on the evening of the 7th a furious
bombardment began at four o'clock, the Boer guns all round firing into
the town and at anything they could see moving. No damage was done.
In addition to the works on Devon Post, which were manned by the
Regiment, a half-company picquet was told off nightly. This picquet
extended and lay down across the main road at the foot of the forward
work. It mounted after dark and was relieved before daylight in the
morning. Many will remember the spot where this picquet was posted
as the most ill-chosen, inconvenient, and hard platform for a bed on a
rainy night.
The nights of the 6th, 7th, and 8th were occupied in making the works
stronger and building additional works.
On November 9th the Boers made their first attempt against Ladysmith.
The attack commenced at 6 a.m. with heavy musketry fire directed on
to the northern defences; and three hours later the attack developed on
Helpmakaar Post and Cæsar's Camp. Shells came very thickly from
two howitzers and three high-velocity Creusot guns into Devon Post.
This lasted till about 2 p.m., when the action was concluded with a
royal salute from the naval batteries and three hearty cheers, which,
started by the Naval Brigade, were taken up all round the defences in
honour of the birthday of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. A curious ending
to a battle.

During the action a well-directed shell from one of Christie's ancient
howitzers, which were now located on Helpmakaar Hill, pitched with
good effect into the middle of a large group of Boers who were
entrenching themselves on a small rise of ground underneath Gun Hill.
Helpmakaar, which had always been a single-day post, was now turned
into a three days' post, companies remaining in the fort for three days
before being relieved.
On the 11th three companies of the Regiment were sent out under
Captain Lafone to blow up a farm building under Bulwana, about one
and half miles distant from Devon Post. After a long delay, owing to
the blasting materials having been forgotten, the operation was
successfully carried out, and the party returned with only some slight
annoyance from the enemy's pompom and a few shots from a
high-velocity gun stationed on Bulwana.
The Boer artillery on Bulwana and Gun Hill was well served, and their
shooting was excellent. One morning they opened with a 40-pounder
howitzer, known under the name of "Weary Willy," on to the main
work at Devon Post, at a portion of the work occupied by "Walker's
Hotchkiss Gun Detachment." About twelve consecutive shots pitched
within a five yards' radius, and one crashed into and nearly breached
the parapet, which was here about six feet thick and built of large
stones.
The men worked on the 11th from dark till 1 a.m., when the works
were practically completed and sufficiently strengthened to answer all
purposes, although building was being carried on till the last day of the
siege, and the men were still building at the actual moment when the
relief cavalry were marching across the plain into Ladysmith.
The willingness and the cheery manner in which the men of the
battalion worked at these defences are worthy of record. On pitch-dark
nights in pouring rain the men, wet to the skin, covered with mud and
filth, without a smoke, groping about in the dark to find a likely stone,
carried on the work in silence; and when the word was passed along to
knock off work, they "turned in" without a grumble into a wet bivouac.

There was no complaining, and the men were never required by their
officers to bring along the stones faster. The only noise that broke the
stillness of the night was the incessant "click, click, click" of the picks
at work loosening the stones, and the men, in spite of the conditions
under which the work was being carried on, joked among themselves in
an undertone.
Work was nightly carried on from dark till midnight and sometimes till
2 a.m., and the men turned out again to stand to arms at 3.30 a.m.
By the middle of November the works at Devon Post were from 4-1/2
to 10 feet high, from 8 to 10 feet thick at the top (the whole built
roughly of stone), with the superior slope nearly flat, exterior slope
about 1/1, interior slope nearly upright. The front work had a thickness
at the bottom of about 18 feet, owing to the work being constructed on
the slope of the hill.
[Illustration: In the trenches, Ladysmith]
Things passed quietly with