ocks,
and must be climbed on hands and knees, especially in the dark. Up went
the 200, keeping the best line they could, and spreading out well to
the right so as to outflank the enemy when the top was reached. Within
about 100 yards of the summit they came under rifle fire, the Boer guard
having taken alarm. A picket in rear also began firing up at random. It
was impossible to judge the number of the enemy. Anything between twenty
and fifty was a guide's estimate at the time. The slope was so steep
that the Boers were obliged to lean over the edge and show themselves
against the sky as they fired. Some of our men returned their fire with
revolvers. At sixty yards from the top they were halted for the final
assault. The Volunteers, like the Boers, carry no bayonets. Their orders
were not to fire, but to club the enemy with the butt if they stood. The
orders were now repeated. Then some inspired genius (Major Carey-Davis
[? Karri Davis], of the I.L.H., it is said) raised the cry: "Fix
bayonets. Give 'em cold steel, my lads." All appreciated the joke, and
the shout rang down the line, as the men rose up and rushed to the
summit. Four bayonets were actually present, but I am not sure whether
they were fixed or not.

That shout was too much for the Boer gunners. They scattered and fled,
heading across the broad top of the hill, even before our men had
reached the edge. Swinging round from the right, our line rushed for the
big gun. The Light Horse and the Sappers were first to reach it, Colonel
Edwards himself winning the race. They found the splendid gun deserted
in his enormous earthwork, the walls of which are 30 ft. to 35 ft.
thick. One Boer was found dead outside it, shot in the assault.

Captain Fowke and his sappers at once got to work. The breech-block was
unscrewed and taken out, falling a prize to the Light Horse, who vied
with each other in carrying it home (it weighs 137lbs.) Then gun-cotton
was thrust up the breech into the body of the gun. A vast explosion told
the Boers that "Tom" had gone aloft, and his hulk lay in the pit, rent
with two great wounds, and shortened by a head. The sappers say it
seemed a crying shame to wreck a thing so beautiful. The howitzer met
the same fate. A Maxim was discovered and dragged away, and then the
return began. It was now three o'clock, and by four daylight comes. The
difficulty was to get the men to move. The Carbineers especially kept
crowding round the old gun like child