Being ill, I fell asleep for a couple of hours, and when I turned out again all the troops had gone back to camp.
_Sunday, December 3, 1899._ Long before sunrise I went up to the examining post on the Newcastle road, now held by the Gloucesters instead of the Liverpools.

The positions of many regiments have been changed, certain battalions being now kept always ready as a flying column to co-operate with the relieving force.

Last night's movement appears to have been a kind of rehearsal for that.

It was also partly a feint to puzzle the Boers and confuse the spies in the town.
Signalling from lighted windows has become so common among the traitors that to-day a curfew was proclaimed--all lights out at half-past eight.
Rumours about the hanging and shooting of spies still go the round, but my own belief is the authorities would not hurt a fly, much less a spy, if they could possibly help it.
Nearly all day the heliograph was flashing to us from that far-off hill.
There is some suspicion that the Boers are working it as a decoy.

We lost three copies of our code at Dundee, and it is significant that it was a runner brought the good news of Methuen's successes on Modder River to-night.