Shortly after the first few shells had been dropped the Boers found the range, and from Signal Hill, their position to the east of the town, threw several shells at the hospital and monastery. Strange as it may seem our most grievous cause of complaint against the Boer plan of war is that they do not respect sufficiently our Red Cross flag. Commandant Snyman had given us no time in which to remove our women and children, and, as a consequence, we established somewhat hurriedly a laager, in which they were confined and which it was hoped would be beyond the fire of the Boer, since we afforded it the protection of the Red Cross flag. This, so far as the laager was concerned, luckily proved to be the case, since on the occasion that Commandant Cronje sent in to apologise for the firing upon the Red Cross by his younger roughs during the Five Mile Bank fight, Colonel Baden-Powell took the opportunity of pointing out to him the precise significance of this flag, and the exact whereabouts of the buildings which enjoined its protection. In the absence of direct evidence of the enemy's intention upon this day, in the repugnance with which one would charge them with wilful abuse of the Red Cross, it is good to believe that Colonel Baden-Powell's letter was not communicated to Commandant Snyman previous to this action, for from the moment that this officer opened the bombardment until his artillery ceased fire for the day, each individual missile was thrown directly across the hospital and monastery. It was unfortunate that these buildings should have been in the line of fire, and it was a fact greatly to be deplored that the hospital should be filled, at such a moment, with women and wounded, the former magnanimously devoting themselves to the work of looking after those who had been disabled in Saturday's engagement. It was perhaps unavoidable, with such a line of fire, that the shells should not drop upon the hospital and monastery. Fearing this as we did, the garrison was filled with consternation when, so abruptly that we had scarcely realised what had been the actual object of the nameless dread by which the camp was suddenly depressed, the inevitable happened and we knew that a shell had burst within the hospital itself. Had this shell been of the quality and explosive character that we had been led to expect, one entire side of the hospital would have been reduced to ruins; as it was, however, the area of destruction most remote from the point of penetration was not three feet in circumference. A little of the masonry was destroyed, a few boards of the floor ripped up, and that was all. Dust and dirt, however, covered everything.