series of high, boulder-strewn tablelands, which
offered almost perfect cover. Between these tablelands and French's
force lay a wide and partly scrubless stretch of veldt. Over that
terrible exposed slope his men must go, before they could come within
useful range of the enemy. French was faced with a most perilous and
difficult enterprise. However, that is precisely what French likes. He
rose to the situation with ready resource. It was not easy to locate
the exact position of the enemy ensconced amid these covering hills.
So in the afternoon he ordered a simultaneous frontal and flank
attack. Just which was front and which was flank it was for his
lieutenants to discover. Sir Ian Hamilton's instructions to the
infantry were brief but decisive. "The enemy are there," he said, "and
I hope you will shift them out before sunset--in fact, I know you
will."

When the action had fairly commenced, Sir George White and his staff
galloped over from Ladysmith. French approached, saluted, and asked
for instructions. The chivalrous White's only reply was, "Go on,
French; this is your show." All the afternoon he stayed on the field,
watching the progress of events, and approving French's dispositions.

The battle proved to be, in many ways, one of the most spectacular in
history. For as the infantry advanced, under a steady hail of shell
and bullets, the sky began to darken. The Boer positions stood
silhouetted by stray puffs of white smoke against a lowering cumulus
of clouds. While the artillery on both sides shook the ground with an
inferno of sound, the storm burst. The thunder of the heavens became a
spasmodic chorus to the roar of the guns. One correspondent has
described how he found himself mechanically humming the "Ride of the
Valkyries" that was being played on such a dread orchestra. Slipping
and stumbling, cursing and cheering, the Devons crept forward across
the sodden grass. Many of the bravest, among them Chisholme, went down
on that plain of death. Far beyond the level veldt there were
something like 800 feet to climb in the face of Mauser and shrapnel.
At length, however, the top of the ridge was reached. There stood the
three guns that had wrought such havoc, now silent among the corpses
of the frock-coated burghers who had served them.

[Page Heading: THE WHITE FLAG TRICK]

The Boers still kept up the fight, however, on the further side of the
plateau. The cheering Gordons, the Manchesters and the Devons no