im game of death.
Where now were the officers with their distinctive dresses and flashing
swords, where the valiant rushes over the open, where the men who
were too proud to lie down?--the tactics of three months ago seemed
as obsolete as those of the Middle Ages. All day the line undulated
forward, and by evening yet another strip of rock-strewn ground had been
gained, and yet another train of ambulances was bearing a hundred of
our wounded back to the base hospitals at Frere. It was on Hildyard's
Brigade on the left that the fighting and the losses of this day
principally fell. By the morning of January 22nd the regiments were
clustering thickly all round the edges of the Boer main position, and
the day was spent in resting the weary men, and in determining at
what point the final assault should be delivered. On the right front,
commanding the Boer lines on either side, towered the stark eminence of
Spion Kop, so called because from its summit the Boer voortrekkers had
first in 1835 gazed down upon the promised land of Natal. If that could
only be seized and held! Buller and Warren swept its bald summit with
their field-glasses. It was a venture. But all war is a venture; and the
brave man is he who ventures most. One fiery rush and the master-key of
all these locked doors might be in our keeping. That evening there
came a telegram to London which left the whole Empire in a hush of
anticipation. Spion Kop was to be attacked that night.

The troops which were selected for the task were eight companies of the
2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, six of the 2nd Royal Lancasters, two of the
1st South Lancashires, 180 of Thorneycroft's, and half a company of
Sappers. It was to be a North of England job.

Under the friendly cover of a starless night the men, in Indian file,
like a party of Iroquois braves upon the war trail, stole up the winding
and ill-defined path which led to the summit. Woodgate, the Lancashire
Brigadier, and Blomfield of the Fusiliers led the way. It was a severe
climb of 2000 feet, coming after arduous work over broken ground,
but the affair was well-timed, and it was at that blackest hour which
precedes the dawn that the last steep ascent was reached. The Fusiliers
crouched down among the rocks to recover their breath, and saw far down
in the plain beneath them the placid lights which showed where their
comrades were resting. A fine rain was falling, and rolling clouds hung
low over their heads. The men with u