wever, the respective directions
assigned by Sir R. Buller to the guns and the infantry brigade were
found to diverge, and General Barton accordingly detailed two
companies of the Royal Scots Fusiliers to continue with the guns as
escort. At 5.30 a.m. the Brigadier halted his command, his leading
battalion being then about two miles from the river.

[Sidenote: Col. Long's mission.]

The specific task assigned to No. 1 brigade division by the operation
orders was, "to proceed to a point from which it can prepare the
crossing for the 2nd brigade." Sir Redvers Buller, at the conference
of the previous afternoon, had thought it desirable to supplement and
anticipate this written order with verbal instructions as to the exact
point at which the batteries should come into action. He had intended
to convey to Colonel Long by these verbal instructions that the
purposed preparation should be carried out at long range. But the
impression left on the subordinate officer's mind, when he left the
conference, was that medium range was meant. As he rode therefore with
Lieut.-Colonel Hunt and Lieut. Ogilvy, R.N., at the head of the field
artillery, now marching in battery column, Long was on the look out
for a suitable position at a distance of not less than 2,000 yards and
not more than 2,500 yards from Fort Wylie, the southernmost of the
kopjes which had been pointed out as the brigade division's targets.
Had a site between those limits been selected, the batteries would not
have been seriously molested by the Boer riflemen entrenched on the
far bank of the river, and could, by superior strength, have crushed
the enemy's gunners posted among the Colenso kopjes.

[Sidenote: Long brings his guns into action, after Boer guns open on
Hart, _i.e._, about 6.15 a.m.]

It was not until after 6 a.m. that Long arrived at the distance from
the river at which he had intended to come into action. The batteries
were still at a walk, with the Naval guns in rear, when suddenly heavy
firing was heard on the left flank. It was evident that part of the
British force was closely engaged. Anxious to afford immediate
effective support, and deceived by the light as to his actual distance
from Fort Wylie, Long ordered Hunt's brigade division to push on, and
come into action at a point about eighty yards to the north of a broad
and shallow donga, which runs at right angles to the railway and was
just in front of his guns. Ogilvy's Naval guns were to foll