was a good one,
just when the fight was over, right into our guns.

I saw a little rocky point ahead of me, as if made on purpose for a
war correspondent. By running across some open ground I was on to it.
There was good if not ample cover on the top. It was in the middle of
the angle made by the line of advance of the men along the ridge and
the line of the Devons' main advance, and quite close to the hill.
Stretching away on our left over a level khaki-coloured sloping field
(if I may so call it) of veldt, were the Devons lying behind
ant-hills, placed as if on purpose to give scant but welcome shelter
to troops advancing under fire. The colour-scheme of the whole stretch
was perfect for concealment, and there was Tommy learning more of how
to take advantage of scant cover in this half-hour, under the bitter
pitter-patter of Mauser bullets, than he would learn at home in years
of manoeuvres.

That was a trying wait for Mr. Atkins; yet how steadily he stood
it--or not exactly stood it, but crouched it, lay it, or
mother-earth-hugged it! On our right was the level sky-lined hill,
ending in a rounded, precipitous point, on which the Boer guns were
stationed. Under that heavy-hanging bank of clouds, yet just behind
it, a clear steel-like light was showing. Against this, upon the top
of the hill, silhouetted with most delicately accurate sharpness, were
the figures of the Manchesters. The Gordons were in the same line over
the rounded top of the hill. They advanced at a run, crouched, then
swarmed forward again, and again lay low. Then the little runs became
shorter, the rests longer, and the fire hotter and more continuous.
Were they going to take that hill before complete nightfall, or was it
going to be a two-day job, notwithstanding the five hours' hard
fighting we had had already? A man near me said to me, "Do you hear
the steam escaping? I expect it is the Boers letting it off from the
colliery which they took on Thursday." It was the sound of steam, of
escaping steam, right enough, but that sound was made by bullets. It
went on continuously from the time the final infantry advance took
place, and rose in a crescendo of hissing vehemence as we neared the
supreme climax of the struggle. How eagerly we watched these creeping
figures going forward! Would they succeed? Would they ever reach the
point of the hill? How slow it seemed, but steadily, steadily on along
the ridge they went.

Now all the great orchestra of