ereas, if he had made a flanking movement, he might have attained
his end, perhaps without losing a single man.

Pride or stupidity must have induced him not to change his tactics.
Nothing daunted by the repeated failures in the morning, our
assailant charged again, now one position and then another, trying to
get their field-pieces in position, but each time without success. At
their wits' end, the enemy tried another dodge, bringing his guns
right up to our position under cover of some Red Cross waggons. The
officer who perceived this, reported to me by heliograph, asking for
instructions. I answered: 'If a Red Cross waggon enters the fighting
lines during the battle, it is there on its own responsibility.'
Besides, General Paget, under protection of the white flag, might have
asked any moment or an hour, or longer, to carry away his many
unfortunate wounded, who were lying between two fires in the burning
sun.

When the Red Cross waggon was found to be in the line of fire, it was
put right-about face, while some guns remained behind to fire shrapnel
at us from a short distance. They could only fire one or two shots,
for our burghers soon put out of action the artillerists who were
serving them. Towards the afternoon some of my burghers began to run
short of ammunition, I had a field-cornet's force in reserve, from
which five to ten men were sent to the position from time to time, and
this cheered the burghers up again.

The same attacking tactics were persisted in by General Paget all day
long, although they were a complete failure. When the sun disappeared
behind the Magaliesbergs, the enemy made a final, in fact, a desperate
effort to take our positions, the guns booming along while we were
enveloped by clouds of dust thrown up by the shells.

The soldiers charged, brave as lions, and crept closer to our
positions than they had done during the day.

But it seemed as if Fate were favouring us, for our 15-pounder had
just got ready, sending his shells into the enemy's lines in rapid
succession, and finding the range most beautifully. The pom-pom
too--which we could only get to fire one or two shells all day long,
owing to the gunner having to potter about for two or three hours
after each shot to try and repair it--to our great surprise suddenly
commenced booming away, and the two pieces--I was going to say the
"mysterious" pieces--poured a stream of murderous steel into the
assailants, which made them waver an