United States or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The other day they sent a 12-pounder up to Cæsar's Camp under a boy who, if he were not commanding big men round a big gun in a big war, might with luck be in the fifth form. "There's a 94-pounder up there," said a high officer, who might just have been his grandfather. "All right, sir," said the child serenely; "we'll knock him out."
Here was a light-hearted cavalry-officer locked up in a little frontier town with seven hundred Irregular cavalry, a few score volunteers, six machine-guns and two 7-pounders; against whom was pitted the redoubtable Cronje with one 10-pounder, five 7-pounders, two Krupp 12-pounders, and one Krupp 94-pounder, and probably an army of something like 6000 wily Boers.
They were falling in rapid succession from one end of Bulwaan on Helpmakaar Hill, where the Devons, thanks to having taken wise precautions in making bomb-proof shelters, suffered little, though "Puffing Billy" turned occasionally to hurl a 94-pounder in that direction when tired of raking Cæsar's Camp and Maiden's Castle, where the Manchesters had not only their flank exposed to this fire, but were smitten in front by a heavy gun the Boers had mounted on Flat-Top Mountain, some three miles off, and by smaller shells that came from automatic guns hidden among scrub on the nearer slopes across Bester's Farm.
We are not left long in doubt as to the meaning of those new works on Gun Hill. A Creusot 94-pounder has opened from there, shelling in rapid succession Sir George White's headquarters camp, the Royal Artillery, and the Imperial Light Horse, who have their parade and playground pitted by marks of this fire.
Middle Hill, Rifleman's Ridge, Telegraph Hill, with its three 9-pounders, which the Rifle Brigade men, for quaint reasons of their own, name Faith, Hope, and Charity, all have a turn at us, and our batteries reply; but there is not much vigour in it on either side until Middle Hill, with its Creusot 94-pounder, and the howitzer on Surprise Hill, begin to shell our naval 12-pounders.
Word Of The Day