emorseless fire that treachery had forewarned the Boers, that Game
Tree was impregnable. But did they waver or turn back? Not them. They
were many yards from the fort, and their orders were to storm it. On
they rushed, the officers well in front, waving their swords in the
air and shouting cheerfully to their men to follow. Three officers,
Vernon, Sandford, and Paton, seem to have made a race of it. Through
that terrible zone of fire these young Englishmen rushed forward with
all the zeal of men striving to be first to touch the tape. Captain
Vernon fell ten yards from the thundering fort, and Sandford and Paton
were left to fight out that splendid race alone. With a shout from his
parched lips, Paton leaped upon the redoubt, caught with his strong
hand the corner of a sandbag, jerked it out of position, thrust his
revolver through the loophole, and, panting like a man spent, fired
into the enemy's midst till he fell, shot through his gallant heart.
Sandford, too, had run a great race, and had almost tied with Paton on
the post. He flung himself upon the piled wall that could only be
broken by heavy artillery, and fell shot through, with his breast
almost against the muzzles of the enemy's guns. Nor were the
non-commissioned officers and men far behind their valiant leaders;
one intrepid sergeant, who was twice wounded, and at some distance
from the redoubt, continued the race across the bullet-swept scrub and
reached the sandbags almost on the heels of Paton. The men went
forward shouting and cheering, unafraid to look death in the face,
afraid only to turn back with their faces from the sandbags where the
smoke drifted, and from whence the hail of bullets rained. There was
no coward among their ranks, and even when the gallant souls realised
that the position was impregnable, there was not a single man among
them who wavered, or dropped back in the race. From the moment when
the order to charge had been given, the attack was an eagerly
contested race, with Death sitting on the flaming fort with the crown
of glory for their prize.

When an aide-de-camp from the officer commanding the operations
galloped up to Baden-Powell with the woeful intelligence that Captain
Vernon had been repulsed, the Goal-Keeper hesitated, and the
bystanders saw that he was taking counsel with himself as to whether a
second attack should be made upon Game Tree fort. But his decision was
soon reached, and in a quiet voice he said, "Let the ambu