s they could get, made their way very
deliberately towards the two field-batteries and into the mouth of a
flaming hell. These were Captain Schofield, R.A. (A.D.C. to General
Buller), Captain the Hon. F. Roberts, 60th Rifles, and Captain Congreve,
Rifle Brigade. This glorious bravery was almost an act of suicide, and
in sheer amazement at the wondrous valour of these dauntless Britons,
the Boer rifle-fire, for one instant, was suspended. In the next, shot
and shell burst forth afresh and the scene became too harrowing for
description. Roberts, the gallant and the beloved, dropped, wounded in
five places, while his horse was blown to bits, and Congreve, his jacket
riddled to ribbons, was hit several times. Schofield, by a miracle, came
whole from the ordeal, and succeeded in the almost impossible task of
hauling off the two guns, for which all three and many others had risked
their lives. The rest of the guns were captured by the enemy, but of
this anon.

[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF COLENSO--THE DUBLIN FUSILIERS ATTEMPT TO
FORD THE TUGELA.

Drawing by Rene Bull and Enoch Ward, R.B.A.]

Major-General Hart's Brigade, consisting of the Dublins, Inniskillings,
Borderers, and Connaughts, fulfilled in a measure what was expected of
them. Some of them actually crossed the Tugela, but, alas! to no
purpose. The position near the other side was untenable. A dam had been
thrown across the water to deepen it. Cascades of artillery shrapnel
were so liberally poured upon them, there was no holding up a head in
such a fusillade. Yet they pushed on to the river, and the enemy fell
back before them or dropped under their steady determined fire. The
Dutchmen were driven to the north bank of the Tugela, and the Irish
Brigade gallantly plunged in, thinking the water was knee-deep or at
least fordable, and it was only then that they discovered that the wire
entanglements that had been spread around the trenches were also under
water, and that the flood itself was unexpectedly deep, owing to the
ingenious dam that had been constructed by the "slim" adversary. There
were now ten feet of water instead of two, and sad was the plight of
many a poor fellow of the Dublins and Connaughts, who, weighted with
ammunition and accoutrements, found it impossible to swim to shore or
even to return. They were drowned in the flood, while others dropped in
heaps under the enemy's fire, and even under volleys of our own men,
who, unluckily, mistook them fo