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Updated: May 21, 2025
Anyhow, the shell is quite big enough, whatever its weight, and it bangs into shops, chapels, ladies' bedrooms without any nice distinctions. I could see "Tom's" ugly muzzle tilted up above a great earthwork which the Boers had heaped near a tree on the edge of that flat-topped hill, which we may call Pepworth, from a little farm hard by.
Captain Lambton complained that by the laws of war the gun was permanently out of action. But "Long Tom" goes on as before. I think the best story of the siege comes from a Kaffir who walked in a few days ago. In the Boer camp behind Pepworth Hill he had seen the men being taught bayonet exercise with our Lee-Metfords, captured at Dundee.
I have never seen it so clear the precipitous barrier of the Basuto mountains, lined with cloud, and still touched with snow: the great sculptured mountains that mark the Free State border: and then the scenes which have become so familiar to us all Elands Laagte, Tinta Inyoni, Pepworth Hill, Lombard's Kop, and the great Bulwan.
On November 2, began the bombardment, which the enemy fondly hoped would bring White on his knees within a week; the first death casualty during the siege being a naval officer who had reached Ladysmith only a few hours before the investment with a re-inforcement of long-range naval guns from the fleet; and during the next two days it was continued from Pepworth, Bulwana, and elsewhere, with such effect as to induce White to ask, at the instigation of the civilian authorities, permission to send away the women, children, and other non-combatants.
All through the forenoon Ladysmith and the little garrison left behind for its defence was the target of Long Tom on Pepworth Hill. The fugitives from Kainguba brought in disheartening reports and the Boers seemed to be threatening from the north.
Through a telescope at the Heliograph Station I watched the men working hard at the sangar. Two on the face of the hill were evidently making a wire entanglement. On Pepworth Hill the sappers think they are putting up one of the 8.7 in. guns, four of which the Boers are known to have ordered, though it is not certain whether they received them. They throw a 287lb. shell.
A kaffir came in to-day, bringing the strange story that the old "Long Tom" of Pepworth Hill was hit full in the muzzle by "Lady Anne," that the charge inside him burst, the gun was shattered, and five gunners killed. The Kaffir swore he himself had been employed to bury them, and that the thing he said was true. If so, our "Lady Anne" has made the great shot of the war.
It is rumoured that Pepworth Hill is to have a successor to the "Long Tom" of earlier and happier days. Six empty waggons with double spans of oxen were seen yesterday wending towards Bulwan. Our hunger is increasing. Men and horses suffer horribly from weakness and disease. About fifteen horses die a day, and the survivors gasp and cough at every step, or fall helpless.
A few days later I went to see my brother, who was stationed on Pepworth Hill, some six miles to our right. He belonged to the Artillery Cadets, who at the beginning of the war had been distributed amongst the various guns in order to give them practical experience. Of the four that were attached to this gun two had already been wounded.
The general idea was that an infantry brigade, supported on its right flank by cavalry acting towards Lombard's Kop, should attack the enemy, who was presumed to be in force on Long Hill and Pepworth Hill.
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