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One perfect specimen of a 96lb. shell from Bulwan fell into a soft flower bed and did not burst or receive a scratch. I suppose it cost the Boers about £35, and it would still fetch £10 as a secondhand article. A brother to it pitched into a boarding house close by us, and blew the whole gable end sky high. Unhappily two of the inmates were wounded, and a horse killed.
He threw about fifteen shells, but most of us are quite indifferent to the 96lb. explosive thunder-bolts dropping around us. Indeed, fourteen of them did little harm. But just one happened to drop in the Natal Carbineer lines while the horses were being groomed. Two men were killed outright and three mortally wounded. A sapper was killed 200 yards away. Three others were wounded.
He is a red Irishman, born at Maidstone, and has done eleven years' service. During the attack on the 6th he was sitting beside his gun waiting for Major Abdy's word to fire in his turn, when a 96lb. shell from "Bulwan" struck him in its flight, and shattered his left arm and leg. He says he was knocked silly, and felt a bit fluttered, but had no pain till they lifted him into the dhoolie.
Before sunrise "Puffing Billy" of Bulwan exploded five 96lb. shells within fifty yards of my humble cottage, disturbing my morning sleep after a night of fever. I suppose he was aiming at the bakery again, but he killed nobody and only destroyed an outbuilding. Farther down the town unhappily he killed three privates.
There was little to mark the day beyond the steady shelling of snipers by the Natal Navals, and a great 96lb. shell from Bulwan which plunged through a Kaffir house, where black labourers live stuffed together, took off a Kaffir's foot, ricocheted over our little mess-room, just glancing off the roof, and fell gasping, but still entire, beside our verandah.
Creusot gun, throwing a 96lb. shell, as I described before, and about 150 yards to the left was a howitzer generally identified with "Silent Susan." Those are the two guns which for the last fortnight have caused most damage to the troops and town. Their capture was the object of the night's adventure.
Two days before she had given a soldier 10s. for a fragment. Now she had a whole shell for nothing. At five o'clock "Long Tom" threw seven of his 96lb. shells straight down the street in quick succession, smashing a few shops and killing some mules and cattle, but without further harm. We watched them from the top of the road.
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