ty for the force
upon it, and the shell fire--especially the fire of the pom-poms--soon
became very murderous. To mass the troops under the cover of the edge
of the plateau might naturally suggest itself, but with great tactical
skill the Boer advanced line from Commandant Prinsloo's Heidelberg and
Carolina commandos kept so aggressive an attitude that the British could
not weaken the lines opposed to them. Their skirmishers were creeping
round too in such a way that the fire was really coming from three
separate points, left, centre, and right, and every corner of the
position was searched by their bullets. Early in the action the gallant
Woodgate and many of his Lancashire men were shot down. The others
spread out and held on, firing occasionally at the whisk of a
rifle-barrel or the glimpse of a broad-brimmed hat.

From morning to midday, the shell, Maxim, and rifle fire swept across
the kop in a continual driving shower. The British guns in the plain
below failed to localise the position of the enemy's, and they were able
to vent their concentrated spite upon the exposed infantry. No blame
attaches to the gunners for this, as a hill intervened to screen the
Boer artillery, which consisted of five big guns and two pom-poms.

Upon the fall of Woodgate, Thorneycroft, who bore the reputation of a
determined fighter, was placed at the suggestion of Buller in charge
of the defence of the hill, and he was reinforced after noon by Coke's
brigade, the Middlesex, the Dorsets, and the Somersets, together with
the Imperial Light Infantry. The addition of this force to the defenders
of the plateau tended to increase the casualty returns rather than the
strength of the defence. Three thousand more rifles could do nothing to
check the fire of the invisible cannon, and it was this which was the
main source of the losses, while on the other hand the plateau had
become so cumbered with troops that a shell could hardly fail to do
damage. There was no cover to shelter them and no room for them to
extend. The pressure was most severe upon the shallow trenches in
the front, which had been abandoned by the Boers and were held by the
Lancashire Fusiliers. They were enfiladed by rifle and cannon, and the
dead and wounded outnumbered the hale. So close were the skirmishers
that on at least one occasion Boer and Briton found themselves on
each side of the same rock. Once a handful of men, tormented
beyond endurance, sprang up as a sign that