battle was playing--from behind us on
the right our artillery were firing at the hill in advance of the
Manchesters and Gordons--in one minute that I timed with my watch I
counted sixteen discharges. How the shells shrieked and whirled over
us! I found myself somehow humming the "Ride of the Valkyrie," which
these shells had suggested; then the Maxims would play a few bars, or
a sharp volley ring from the left. The rocky kopje was vocal with
rattling echoes, while with piccolo distinctness the air above and
about us sang with the sharp Mauser notes.

It was now a quarter to six. Rapid movements could be seen amongst the
Boers on top of the hill; some were beginning to gallop off, over the
sky line, but others galloped in the opposite direction. Our
artillery fire had now reached a nicety of deadly accuracy. They were
firing impact shells. I had my glasses on one horseman who appeared to
me to be firing from his saddle, and fighting stubbornly. There was no
sign of running away about him. As I looked the figure became a little
cloud of smoke--the smoke cleared--horse nor rider was any longer
there. Chancing to look at another, who was darting about irregularly,
as if confused and not knowing which way to fly, a fountain of smoke
flew up in front of his horse as a shell burst. When the smoke cleared
he and the horse were lying on the ground, and immediately after to a
third exactly the same thing happened.

The crescendo of battle had now reached a climax in a perfect roar of
sound. The bugles sounded the charge. God bless the man that wrote
these heart-cheering notes. Forward--rattling, stumbling, falling over
the rocks, cheering, swearing, forward anyhow--formation be hanged!

How the Devons climbed these rocks! Following in the right of the
Devons' wake, passing their wounded across that slopy field of veldt,
and the flat to the base of the hill, it was a sweating, breathless
climb up; the men were already cheering on the top above my head. The
first sign of mortality on the Boer side I encountered was a hairy
little black pig lying on his side bleeding proverbially--then a tall
Boer lying headlong down the rocks. On the top--what confusion! Tommy,
drunk with delight of battle. Prisoners, wounded, Gordons,
Manchesters, Devons--all mixed inexplicably. A Boer gun still in
position was a centre for gathering. In another place the ground was
strewn with rugs, broken provisions, empty and half-empty bottles,
saddles galo