Horizontal fire is easy to
find cover against, but these discharges from on high are much more
difficult to evade. For instance, ant-hills are excellent cover against
rifles, but none at all against these shells. It is shrapnel, as this
kind of shell is called, that does the most mischief. The round bullets
(200 to a caseful) lie scattered about in the dust, and mixed with them
are very different little slender silvery missiles, quite pretty and
delicate, like jewellers' ornaments. These are Lee-Metford bullets. You
could pick up a pocketful in a short time.
The action itself was mainly an infantry one. Here are one or two
jottings taken that day:--
"_November 26th_, 7.30 A.M.--We left camp, six miles south of Modder
River, a little before daylight and marched north. The country is like
what one imagines a North American prairie to be, a sea of whitish,
coarse grass, with here and there a low clump of bushes (behind one of
which we are halted as I write this). One can see a vast distance over
the surface. Along the north horizon there is a ripple of small hills
and kopjes, looking blue, with the white grass-land running up to them.
It is a comparatively cool morning with a few light clouds in the sky
and a pleasant breeze. On our left is the railway, and all along on our
right, extending far in front and far behind, advances the army.
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