and truck going down with a white-flag flying,
bringing back poor Colonel Chisholme's body for burial. Suddenly on the
left from the top of a mountain side beyond a long rocky ridge I saw the
orange flash of a big gun. The next moment came the familiar buzz and
scream of a great shell, the crash, the squealing fragments, the dust
splashing up all round us as they fell. I have never seen men and horses
gallop faster than in our rapid right-wheel over the open ground towards
a Kaffir kraal. I think only one horse was badly hurt, but at no
military tournament have I seen artillery move in such excellent style.
It was all over in a minute. The Boers must have measured the range to a
yard, and just have kept that gun loaded and waiting.

But in tactics jokes may be mistakes. That shot revealed the enemy's
position. Within ten minutes our gunners had snipt the barbed wire
fences along the railway, had dashed their guns across, and were
dragging them up that low rocky ridge--say, 300ft. to 400ft. high--which
had now so suddenly become our front and fighting position. Three field
batteries went up, and close behind them came the Gloucesters on the
right, a few companies of the second 60th (K.R.R.) the Liverpools and
the Devons in order on the centre and left. On our right we had some of
the 19th Hussars and 5th Lancers; on our left a large mixed force of the
mounted Natal Volunteers, who were soon strongly engaged in a small
valley at the end of the ridge, and suffered a good deal all day. But
the chief work and credit lay with our guns. Till they got into
position, found the range and began to fire, the enemy's shells kept
dropping over the ridge and plumping into the ground. None were so
successful as the first, and only few of them burst, but shells are very
unpleasant, and it was a relief when at the second or third shot from
our batteries we found the enemy's shells had ceased to arrive. We had
destroyed the limber, if not the gun, and after that the shells were all
on one side. Some say the Boers had two guns, but I only saw one myself,
and I watched it as a mouse watches a cat. One does.

The Boers, however, had many cats to watch. Climbing up the ridge
towards its left end, I sat among the rocks with the Liverpools and
Devons beside one of the batteries, and got a good view of the Boer
position. They were in irregular lines and patches among the rocks of
some low hills across a little valley in our front, and were stati