one--and then, and only then, there blazed out upon them four miles
of rifles, cannon, and machine guns, and they realised, from general to
private, that they had walked unwittingly into the fiercest battle yet
fought in the war.

Before the position was understood the Guards were within seven hundred
yards of the Boer trenches, and the other troops about nine hundred, on
the side of a very gentle slope which made it most difficult to find any
cover. In front of them lay a serene landscape, the river, the houses,
the hotel, no movement of men, no smoke--everything peaceful and
deserted save for an occasional quick flash and sparkle of flame. But
the noise was horrible and appalling. Men whose nerves had been steeled
to the crash of the big guns, or the monotonous roar of Maxims and
the rattle of Mauser fire, found a new terror in the malignant
'ploop-plooping' of the automatic quick-firer. The Maxim of the Scots
Guards was caught in the hell-blizzard from this thing--each shell no
bigger than a large walnut, but flying in strings of a score--and men
and gun were destroyed in an instant. As to the rifle bullets the air
was humming and throbbing with them, and the sand was mottled like a
pond in a shower. To advance was impossible, to retire was hateful. The
men fell upon their faces and huddled close to the earth, too happy if
some friendly ant-heap gave them a precarious shelter. And always, tier
above tier, the lines of rifle fire rippled and palpitated in front of
them. The infantry fired also, and fired, and fired--but what was there
to fire at? An occasional eye and hand over the edge of a trench
or behind a stone is no mark at seven hundred yards. It would be
instructive to know how many British bullets found a billet that day.

The cavalry was useless, the infantry was powerless--there only remained
the guns. When any arm is helpless and harried it always casts an
imploring eye upon the guns, and rarely indeed is it that the gallant
guns do not respond. Now the 75th and 18th Field Batteries came rattling
and dashing to the front, and unlimbered at one thousand yards. The
naval guns were working at four thousand, but the two combined were
insufficient to master the fire of the pieces of large calibre which
were opposed to them. Lord Methuen must have prayed for guns as
Wellington did for night, and never was a prayer answered more
dramatically. A strange battery came lurching up from the British rear,
unheralded,