feelers, and coasted along the edge of the advancing host. His
report warned White that if he would strike before all the scattered
bands were united he must do so at once. The wounded were sent down to
Pietermaritzburg, and it would bear explanation why the non-combatants
did not accompany them. On the evening of the same day Joubert in person
was said to be only six miles off, and a party of his men cut the water
supply of the town. The Klip, however, a fair-sized river, runs through
Ladysmith, so that there was no danger of thirst. The British had
inflated and sent up a balloon, to the amazement of the back-veld Boers;
its report confirmed the fact that the enemy was in force in front of
and around them.

On the night of the 29th General White detached two of his best
regiments, the Irish Fusiliers and the Gloucesters, with No. 10 Mountain
Battery, to advance under cover of the darkness and to seize and hold
a long ridge called Nicholson's Nek, which lay about six miles to the
north of Ladysmith. Having determined to give battle on the next day,
his object was to protect his left wing against those Freestaters who
were still moving from the north and west, and also to keep a pass
open by which his cavalry might pursue the Boer fugitives in case of a
British victory. This small detached column numbered about a thousand
men--whose fate will be afterwards narrated.

At five o'clock on the morning of the 30th the Boers, who had already
developed a perfect genius for hauling heavy cannon up the most
difficult heights, opened fire from one of the hills which lie to the
north of the town. Before the shot was fired, the forces of the British
had already streamed out of Ladysmith to test the strength of the
invaders.

White's army was divided into three columns. On the extreme left, quite
isolated from the others, was the small Nicholson's Nek detachment under
the command of Colonel Carleton of the Fusiliers (one of three gallant
brothers each of whom commands a British regiment). With him was Major
Adye of the staff. On the right British flank Colonel Grimwood commanded
a brigade composed of the 1st and 2nd battalions of the King's Royal
Rifles, the Leicesters, the Liverpools, and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
In the centre Colonel Ian Hamilton commanded the Devons, the Gordons,
the Manchesters, and the 2nd battalion of the Rifle Brigade, which
marched direct into the battle from the train which had brought them
from Durba