Night, Morning, And Noon The Shells
Rained Upon The Town Until The Most Timid Learned Fatalism If Not
Bravery.
The crash of the percussion, and the strange musical tang
of the shrapnel sounded ever in their ears.
With their glasses the
garrison could see the gay frocks and parasols of the Boer ladies
who had come down by train to see the torture of the doomed town.
The Boers were sufficiently numerous, aided by their strong
positions and excellent artillery, to mask the Ladysmith force and
to sweep on at once to the conquest of Natal. Had they done so it
is hard to see what could have prevented them from riding their
horses down to salt water. A few odds and ends, half battalions and
local volunteers, stood between them and Durban. But here, as on
the Orange River, a singular paralysis seems to have struck them.
When the road lay clear before them the first transports of the
army corps were hardly past St. Vincent, but before they had made
up their mind to take that road the harbour of Durban was packed
with our shipping and ten thousand men had thrown themselves across
their path.
For a moment we may leave the fortunes of Ladysmith to follow this
southerly movement of the Boers. Within two days of the investment
of the town they had swung round their left flank and attacked
Colenso, twelve miles south, shelling the Durban Light Infantry out
of their post with a long-range fire.
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