The night-work at this time was very hard, as everybody not actually on outpost duty had to work at the trenches from 6.30 in the evening till 3 a.m. the next morning. Sleep being impossible in the day-time owing to the heat and a plague of flies, this continual night-work told on the men severely. On November 9th the enemy made a feeble attempt at capturing the place, and came on in considerable numbers against Observation Hill, but were easily repulsed. On the night of December 7th-8th an attack was made on Gun Hill, where the Boers had a 'Long Tom' and a five-inch howitzer, besides one or two small guns. These guns had been annoying us very greatly for the past three weeks, and we were all delighted in the early morning when we heard the attack had been successful, and the guns blown up. We none of us knew anything about this affair till it was over. I was visiting our posts about 2.30 a.m. when I saw two large flashes on Gun Hill; on listening I could not hear any shells travelling or bursting, so concluded the enemy were amusing themselves by firing blank charges. It was not till we saw our column returning at dawn that we solved the problem. We found the spruit very unpleasant in wet weather, as the water used to come down like a mountain torrent and wash away bits of our wall and shelters; after wet nights we used to spend our time in digging our belongings out of the sand, having spent the night sitting on the rocks. About December 18th, after the failure of General Buller's first attempt to relieve us, there was a general interchange of posts amongst the troops of our section, and the detachment received orders to proceed to the Newcastle Road examining guard. We were all heartily sick of the spruit, and glad of the change. It was about this time that our rations began to be diminished, and we had completely run out of all extras. The post of the examining guard was on the road just inside the ridge which formed our general line of defence, but by night we moved out as a piquet about half a mile on to the veld into a spruit which ran under the Harrismith line, whence we patrolled out to Brooke's Farm, and the surrounding country. I think this was the worst post we had throughout the siege, as we came in for a long spell of wet weather, and night after night had to lie out on the open veld from 8 p.m. till 4 a.m., wet to the skin and miserably cold. The duties on this post came very hard on our men, as we had to find a double and single sentry by day, so that they never got a night in bed, and only about one day in three off duty. On Christmas Eve the men came into possession of a fine pig, so that we all had pork for our Christmas dinner, a great change from eternal 'trek ox,' but unfortunately nothing stronger to drink than tea. I'm sure it was the first Christmas any of us had spent in such an uncongenial way.