e of our artillery maxims, 'that one gun is
no gun.' Which is prettier on a field-day, is obvious, but which is
business--let the many duels between six Boer guns and sixty British
declare. With black powder it was useless to hide the gun, as its smoke
must betray it. With smokeless powder the guns are so invisible that
it was only by the detection with powerful glasses of the dust from the
trail on the recoil that the officers were ever able to localise the
guns against which they were fighting. But if the Boers had had six guns
in line, instead of one behind that kopje, and another between those
distant rocks, it would not have been so difficult to say where they
were. Again, British traditions are all in favour of planting guns close
together. At this very action of Vaalkranz the two largest guns were
so placed that a single shell bursting between them would have disabled
them both. The officer who placed them there, and so disregarded in a
vital matter the most obvious dictates of common-sense, would probably
have been shocked by any want of technical smartness, or irregularity in
the routine drill. An over-elaboration of trifles, and a want of grip
of common-sense, and of adaptation to new ideas, is the most serious
and damaging criticism which can be levelled against our army. That the
function of infantry is to shoot, and not to act like spearmen in the
Middle Ages; that the first duty of artillery is so far as is possible
to be invisible--these are two of the lessons which have been driven
home so often during the war, that even our hidebound conservatism can
hardly resist them.

Lyttelton's Brigade, then, held Vaalkranz; and from three parts of the
compass there came big shells and little shells, with a constant shower
of long-range rifle bullets. Behind them, and as useful as if it had
been on Woolwich Common, there was drawn up an imposing mass of men, two
infantry divisions, and two brigades of cavalry, all straining at the
leash, prepared to shed their blood until the spruits ran red with it,
if only they could win their way to where their half-starved comrades
waited for them. But nothing happened. Hours passed and nothing
happened. An occasional shell from the big gun plumped among them. One,
through some freak of gunnery, lobbed slowly through a division, and the
men whooped and threw their caps at it as it passed. The guns on Swartz
Kop, at a range of nearly five miles, tossed shells at the monster on
D