9 NOVEMBER 1899 - LADYSMITH

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From the early morning of 9 November, Boer artillery and rifle fire poured into Ladysmith. A probing attack was launched by the Boer commandos on Observation Hill and countered. We had not, however, done with the enemy by repulsing him at one point.

 

His big guns opened up again from Blauuwbank and Rietfontein to the west and north. A smaller battery on Long Hill echoed the deep boom from “Long Tom”, who was carrying on a duel with our naval gun, and throwing shells over the town, to burst very near Sir George White’s 
headquarters. Field guns from the nek near Lombard’s Kop joined in chorus, shooting with effect on Tunnel Hill, held by the Liverpool’s, several of whom were hit.

 

Sergeant Macdonald (sic) went out of the bomb-proof to mark where one shell had struck, when another burst on the same spot. He fell, terribly mangled by jagged 
fragments of iron. His comrades rushed to him, but he died in their arms, saying simply, “what a pity it was I went out to see.”
“Four Months Besieged -The Story of Ladysmith” by H. H. S. Pearse.