he rattling of arms as the men mustered in
the darkness and hurried to the points of danger.

Three companies of the Gordons had been left near Caesar's Camp, and
these, under Captain Carnegie, threw themselves into the struggle. Four
other companies of Gordons came up in support from the town, losing
upon the way their splendid colonel, Dick-Cunyngham, who was killed by a
chance shot at three thousand yards, on this his first appearance since
he had recovered from his wounds at Elandslaagte. Later four companies
of the Rifle Brigade were thrown into the firing line, and a total of
two and a half infantry battalions held that end of the position. It was
not a man too much. With the dawn of day it could be seen that the Boers
held the southern and we the northern slopes, while the narrow plateau
between formed a bloody debatable ground. Along a front of a quarter of
a mile fierce eyes glared and rifle barrels flashed from behind every
rock, and the long fight swayed a little back or a little forward with
each upward heave of the stormers or rally of the soldiers. For hours
the combatants were so near that a stone or a taunt could be thrown from
one to the other. Some scattered sangars still held their own, though
the Boers had passed them. One such, manned by fourteen privates of the
Manchester Regiment, remained untaken, but had only two defenders left
at the end of the bloody day.

With the coming of the light the 53rd Field Battery, the one which had
already done so admirably at Lombard's Kop, again deserved well of its
country. It was impossible to get behind the Boers and fire straight at
their position, so every shell fired had to skim over the heads of
our own men upon the ridge and so pitch upon the reverse slope. Yet so
accurate was the fire, carried on under an incessant rain of shells
from the big Dutch gun on Bulwana, that not one shot miscarried and that
Major Abdy and his men succeeded in sweeping the further slope without
loss to our own fighting line. Exactly the same feat was equally well
performed at the other end of the position by Major Blewitt's 21st
Battery, which was exposed to an even more searching fire than the 53rd.
Any one who has seen the iron endurance of British gunners and marvelled
at the answering shot which flashes out through the very dust of the
enemy's exploding shell, will understand how fine must have been the
spectacle of these two batteries working in the open, with the ground
r