Their 12-pounders began to snort and to roar, and lyddite
whizzed and shrieked over to Grobler's Hill and in the neighbourhood of
Fort Wylie. But it whizzed and shrieked in vain. The Boers were "mum."
They were "lying low," and had determined to keep their position masked
as long as possible. They adopted the same tactics which had so
confounded us at Majesfontein. The infantry now advanced, while Colonels
Long and Hunt made haste--undue haste, as lamentable experience
proved--to come into line with their field-batteries. At this moment,
when all seemed to be going well, when Hart's, Hildyard's, and Barton's
brigades were moving to their several positions, the sudden combined
roar of Boer artillery and musketry was heard, coming not, as might
have been supposed, from the distance, but _from the immediate front_,
and apparently from all sides. A very cyclone of Mauser bullets swept
all around, rattling and barking from the river bank, from trenches
north and south of the Tugela, from Fort Wylie, and from every available
point of vantage. Flame in tongues and forks belched out as from a
crackling bush. The advancing infantry--the Devons and the West
Surrey--found themselves almost carried off their feet; leaden hail beat
the dust around, digging deep into the earth and sending up spurts of
blinding dust, or whistling a warning of death to the heart of many an
honest lad and true. So deadly, so awful was this fusillade, that it
seemed impossible to do aught but flee. Yet the gunners stood tight to
their guns, and the infantry with set faces like masks of bronze,
regardless of the companions that dropped thick and fast around and upon
them, stared Death straight in the face--stared at and recognised and
knew him, and still maintained their ground! More--they advanced; nearer
and ever nearer to the invisible enemy they came, afterwards lying down
and returning the fire with interest, while the guns of Long's and
Hunt's field-batteries boomed and bellowed and vomited fire like Inferno
released. Fort Wylie and its neighbourhood were swept with shrapnel and
almost silenced, but only for a moment. Disaster was in the air. The
concealed sharpshooters of the enemy, who crowded the Boer lines, had
applied themselves to making a concentrated attack on the guns, picking
off horses and officers and men, and finally reducing the snorting
weapons which had been galloped too quickly into action, and were within
700 yards of the enemy's tr