General Townshend's _jugga_ was next ours. We were on the river bank. Behind us lay H.M.S. _Firefly_ and other boats and barges. Presently from out of the darkness shells began to fall around us. We were right in the line of fire. It appeared that they were shelling the _Firefly_. One shell pitched just short of us and wounded the syces, another burst exactly over us, but too high for the spread to reach us. Then a brisk rifle fire commenced and here and there we heard a suppressed groan. These were my first real moments under fire. The darkness and scantiness of cover made it seem worse, but I was not half so frightened as I thought I should be, and after some minutes, when it was necessary for me to deliver some messages, I gave myself up to Fate with a light heart and blundered in the darkness on my several errands. That was infinitely better than lying pinched up in the inadequate hole watching the dried grass being cut by bullets a foot above one's head. It is a great thing to be occupied in times like this. In passing through my battery I heard that two drivers of my section had been killed. On returning to the dug-out I saw the Staff Captain ferociously digging with a mess-tin. I did the same for the General's side with his own shaving mug,--which I bent, to his disgust--and then got on to my own. About midnight the rifle fire thickened. Now of all entirely horrid things under these conditions you have first and foremost the bullet. It is a thing conceived by Satan for the dispatch of his outsiders and unbeloved. Invisible it comes from anywhere. You hear it and know you are safe. Or you feel it and know you're hit. Since then I have often been under rifle fire, but that night the devilry of the bullets was strange. At 3 a.m. General Townshend said he would attack in two columns unless the fire ceased. I delivered orders connected therewith, but the fire slackened. I slept, and awoke before the dawn, and bustled around after our headquarters' transport, as we expected an immediate move. I also got breakfast ready. This was December 1st.