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Updated: June 28, 2025
This sounded like an attack in force by fresh bodies of Boers who had made their way round from Bulwaan under cover of the hospital camp at Intombi Spruit. But they never came within a thousand yards of our position, and though their rifle fire at that range galled sorely, it was nothing more than a demonstration made in hope of enabling their comrades on the heights to extricate themselves.
Only by holding the contours of extreme spurs on Helpmakaar Hill could the Devons hope to sweep by rifle fire a wide zone of slightly undulating veldt, and thus command all possible approaches from Lombard's Kop or Bulwaan in that direction.
An hour later the other naval gun "Lady Anne" by name silenced "Puffing Billy of Bulwaan" for a time, and we have evidence that the Boers must have suffered some serious losses before noon, when General Joubert sent in a flag of truce, according to a custom which seems to be in favour with him, whenever things are going a bit awry from his point of view.
His requiem rang out from the naval battery in its duel with the enemy's heaviest artillery. Soon other Boer guns joined in from Lombard's Kop and the slopes of Bulwaan, throwing shells about the town as if resolved to compass its ruin.
The 1st Devon battalion, which, as one of the best here, and trusted for its steadiness in all circumstances, was given the most vulnerable point to hold, has busied itself in the formation of works that promise to make Helpmakaar Hill impregnable, though its long, low spur is exposed to artillery fire from Bulwaan and Lombard's Kop and the scrub-screened nek between them.
Any body of Boers attempting to cross that open could be met by overwhelming infantry fire and the shrapnel of field-batteries. The idea that Bulwaan is beyond effective range of anything but the heaviest artillery has, however, been dispelled to-day.
January 3. For two days the Boer fire from Bulwaan has been directed mainly at the Town Hall or buildings near it, with occasional diversions towards the Intelligence Offices on one side, or the Indian Ordnance Laager on the other.
Two hours later artillery and rifle fire began, and continued for nearly an hour, but apparently nobody was any the worse for it. November 21. The cannonade begins again at daybreak with some shots at our scouts, who are trying to feel their way out through the scrub between Bulwaan and Lombard's Kop.
His object, of course, is to discourage any diversion on our part, and it succeeds, because we have no motive for action yet. It is hard to have been cooped up for fifty days under fire, but we must make the best of it. After trying in vain to reach the ordnance stores this morning Bulwaan got the range of headquarters.
Standing on the naval battery, one could watch Boers hard at work preparing positions near Lombard's Kop, and along the crest of Bulwaan, for artillery that was probably then being brought by railway from Laing's Nek, and at the same time columns of Boer horsemen were moving behind Bulwaan southwards, evidently intent upon cutting our own lines of communication.
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