. Besieged by the Boers; a diary of life and events in Kimberley during the siege . lumn was going to move toour relief at once, and every day we heard ru-mours of heavy firing on both sides of Spyt-fontein, but nothing has come of it so far. February 14th.—To-day has been a great do at last seem to have beaten the wilyBoer on his own ground. Shelling began aboutas early as usual, but they treated us to somesmall shells from a gun in their old positionnear the Lazaretto, and one of these killed aman working in a bakery quite early in themorning. The big gun was evidently tryingfor the a
. Besieged by the Boers; a diary of life and events in Kimberley during the siege . lumn was going to move toour relief at once, and every day we heard ru-mours of heavy firing on both sides of Spyt-fontein, but nothing has come of it so far. February 14th.—To-day has been a great do at last seem to have beaten the wilyBoer on his own ground. Shelling began aboutas early as usual, but they treated us to somesmall shells from a gun in their old positionnear the Lazaretto, and one of these killed aman working in a bakery quite early in themorning. The big gun was evidently tryingfor the army office just behind us, and severalof its shells came rather close to us when wewere at breakfast. I hate to be disturbed atmy meals either by patients or shells, so Isat tight and proceeded. I had got well usedto the bombardment by this time, and thoughI had the instinct to take cover each time verywell developed, I managed to resist it. Wehad all found, in fact, that the only thing todo was to take a good grip of yourself and sitfast. If you once gave way and let yourself. NEW USE FOR MINES 159 go it was all up, and you had to strike out forthe shelter every time the bugle went. I wasseeing a patient in my office at the chemistsa few days before when a shell dumped itselfinto a store next door but one; I felt that I wasurgently needed elsewhere, but still I went ontalking and fixed up the patient before I wentdownstairs, though the pieces smacked viciouslyagainst the window and roof. However, to return to breakfast, just as wewere finishing a shell came very close, and whenwe rushed out to see where it was we found ithad fallen and burst in the street just at theend of our yard. This was a shrapnel, too,but one of those that only explode when theystrike, and consequently much less dangerousthan the time-fuse ones, which burst overheadand rain bullets down on you. I think theBoers had used all their stock of solid shell, forI saw several during the day, all this kind ofsh
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