rsfontein.]

[Sidenote: The Boers are repulsed.]

On Jan. 14th, a flying column[273] under Major E. H. H. Allenby
(Inniskilling), marched northward along the Seacow river. Turning to
the east, he demonstrated against the enemy's communications at the
Colesberg road bridge, at which about twenty shells were fired at
5,000 yards' range. The Boers thereupon appeared in three bodies in
greatly superior numbers, and Allenby, having taken five prisoners,
fell back, easily avoiding an attempt to cut him off. This
reconnaissance had the effect of causing the enemy to cease to use the
wagon road for transport purposes. Next day (15th) the Boers
retaliated by a determined attack on the isolated post at
Slingersfontein, held on that day by a half company 1st Yorkshire
regiment,[274] commanded by Captain M. H. Orr and a company (58 men)
New Zealand Mounted Rifles under Captain W. R. N. Madocks, R.A.
(attached). These had their trenches above the farm, the New
Zealanders upon the eastern and the Yorkshire upon the western sides
of a steep and high hill, the lower slopes of which were largely dead
ground to those in the defences. Other kopjes, accessible to the
Boers, were within rifle range. The position was thus to the Boer
rifleman an ideal one for the most exceptional of his fighting
practices, the close offensive. In the subsequent attack, every detail
was typical of his methods on such occasions. At 6.30 a.m. a
long-range sniping fire began to tease the occupants of the hill. They
vainly searched amongst the broken kopjes for sight of an enemy.
Growing, certainly, but almost imperceptibly, in volume and accuracy,
this fire was directed chiefly at the New Zealanders on the east, and
by 10 a.m. had become so intense that an attack in that direction
seemed imminent. Meanwhile, a body of the enemy had been crawling from
exactly the opposite quarter towards the western side, upon which they
succeeded in effecting a lodgment unseen. They then began to climb,
scattering under cover of the boulders. Not until they were close in
front of the sangars of the Yorkshire regiment was their presence
discovered by a patrol which Madocks had sent from his side of the
hill. Thereupon the Boers opened a hot fire, striking down both the
officer and the colour-sergeant of the Yorkshire, whose men, taken by
surprise and suddenly deprived of their leaders, fell into some
confusion. The Boers then occupied the two foremost sangars. The hill
seemed