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Updated: June 28, 2025
Bulwaan began by throwing a shrapnel, which burst low over the camp of Natal Carabineers when the men were at morning stables. Four of them were killed, seven wounded, and a private of the Royal Engineers so badly hit that he lingered only a few hours. The same shell killed eleven horses in the Carabineer lines.
We flatter ourselves that our gymkhana, in which races ridden on pack and transport mules furnished the liveliest incidents, would take a lot of beating as a humorous entertainment at any rate. In order to avoid drawing fire from "Puffing Billy" or "Silent Sue" of Bulwaan, the course had to be laid in a semicircle that passed the picketing line for mules.
Bulwaan fired a single shot by way of parting salute, and then a tripod was rigged up for lifting "Puffing Billy" from his carriage. It was a bold thing to do in broad daylight, and our naval 12-pounders made short work of it by battering the tripod over. After that a steady fire was kept up on the battery to prevent, if possible, the Boers from moving their guns.
Therefore they stayed blazing away at each other until the grey dawn gave place to swift sunrise. Then the Boers, who had a heliograph with them behind Intombi Spur, flashed to Bulwaan the signal "Maak Vecht," and our friend "Puffing Billy" as the big 6-inch Creusot is called promptly made fight in a way that was astonishing in a weapon whose grooves must be worn nearly smooth by frequent firing.
On Wednesday the 20th, too, one of the first shells from Bulwaan burst close to the Police Camp after passing through a row of slender trees and along the fence, inside which Colonel Dartnell's orderly was just preparing to shave.
We all abused "Long Tom" at first because of his unprovoked attack on a defenceless town, but by contrast with what is known among Devon men as the "Bulwaan Sneak," and among bluejackets as "Silent Susan," the big Creusot gun with its loud report, the low velocity of its projectiles, and the puff of white smoke giving timely warning when a shot is on its way, is regarded as quite a gentlemanly monster.
By that time the sun was rising above Bulwaan in a halo of orange, crimson, and purple, and men could count the grim faces of their enemies. Ladysmith was aroused at dawn by the rattle of incessant rifle fire rolling along Bester's Ridge from end to end.
Nobody would have the heart to take any of it from soldiers who have been reduced for weeks past to smoking dried sun-flower leaves and even tea-leaves. Six shots were fired from Bulwaan battery this afternoon after a silence of nearly two days.
Thus no less than 250 valuable trek-oxen fell into the enemy's hands, and we had the humiliation of looking on helpless while it was being done. The bombardment has been going on at intervals all day, from seven o'clock this morning until dusk, when Bulwaan sent several shells on to Junction Hill, killing three men of the Liverpool Regiment and wounding eight.
Noon passed without any Majuba Day salute, but an hour later Bulwaan battery fired twelve shots up Bester's Valley at cattle and men cutting grass, then turned to shell Cove Ridge and Observation Hill, on which one of Captain Christie's howitzers had been mounted during the night. Thus they made up a salute of twenty-one guns. "Puffing Billy" seemed bent on showing what he could do.
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