_December 6._--Now we know what the firing of Boer guns all round Ladysmith at midnight of 19th November meant. It was a night alarm magnified by imagination into a desperate sortie from Ladysmith, and a correspondent of the _Diggers' News_ telegraphed his version of the affair in glowing terms to that paper, giving full details of things that never happened. A copy just received in camp causes much amusement. Reference to my notes for the 19th of last month will show that we were at perfect peace here. Not a man of this force except the ordinary patrols moved on the night when we are reported to have made that strenuous but futile effort to break through the enemy's lines, and not a shot was fired on our side. The Boers must have been startled at their own shadows or at the movements of a subaltern's patrol which they magnified into an army, and having beat the big drum they perhaps tried to justify themselves by sending that cock-and-bull story to Pretoria. To-night our troops are out for exercise, marching through the streets, and singing or whistling merrily as they march. If the Boers get word of this they may have another scare. The daily bombardment is now so much a matter of course that one hardly makes a note of it unless some casualty brings home to us the fact that nobody is safe while shells fly about. _December 7._--During a heavy cannonade in which our naval batteries engaged Gun Hill and Bulwaan from six o'clock until ten this morning, women and children were walking about the streets quite unconcerned. Hundreds of shells have already fallen in the town, and there are some zealous statisticians who compile charts showing exactly where each shell struck and the direction from which it was fired, but the majority of us do not concern ourselves much about any that burst beyond a radius of fifty yards from our own camps or houses, and so many fall harmless that we seldom ask whether anybody has been hit, and it sometimes happens therefore that one does not hear of serious casualties except by accident. It comes rather as a surprise to find that our losses since the siege began, thirty-six days ago, amount to thirteen killed and one hundred and forty-eight wounded. A battle might have been won at less cost. This evening the 6-inch Creusot on Gun Hill was very active, directing its fire toward headquarters at first, and then turning it on a building which has just been selected for the new Post Office, to be opened when communications are restored. It had a narrow escape of being blown to ruins by a shell that entered through the roof and exploded inside. CHAPTER VII THE SORTIES OF DECEMBER