n stream sufficiently far to the west of the bend to
be able to see the railway bridge, but was driven back by musketry.
The battalion took up a position along the left bank, entrenching
itself with the Slade-Wallace tools, carried as part of the soldiers'
equipment. Some companies faced to the west, the remainder to the
north and east. Here they remained till nightfall. They were a target
for the defenders of the banks of the Riet, for a detachment which
lined the Modder near the northern reservoir, and for a pom-pom. This
latter was, however, quickly driven away by a few well-aimed section
volleys. Some time after 9 a.m. two companies of Scots Guards, by
order of Major-General Colvile, fell back from where they were on the
plain, and forming up along the river bank prolonged the line of the
1st Coldstream to the south-west. At dusk a handful of officers and
men succeeded in making their way to the Scots Guards' machine gun
which had been silenced in the morning, and brought it back, together
with one or two wounded men of the detachment who lay around it. At
intervals during the day the British right flank was annoyed by shots
from Boers on the plain to the east of the Riet. These men several
times appeared to be about to make a serious attack upon this part of
the line, but their purpose always withered up under the fire of the
Grenadiers' Maxim gun, of detachments of the Guards left to hold the
southern reservoir, and of the mounted infantry and 9th Lancers on the
extreme right rear.

[Sidenote: Grenadiers and 2nd Coldstream move at 7 a.m., Nov. 28th,
straight for river east of bridge.]

[Sidenote: They are stopped at 1,000 yards from it.]

When the Scots Guards commenced their turning movement, the Grenadiers
and the 2nd battalion of the Coldstream began their frontal attack,
and arrived within 1,000 or 1,100 yards of the enemy who lined the
river bank.[175] At this range the hostile fire was so severe that it
became impossible to get nearer and, as the day wore on, the
difficulty of keeping the men supplied with ammunition grew more and
more serious. When night put an end to the engagement, in many
companies the soldiers had but ten cartridges left in their pouches
with which to cover an attack, or repel a counter-stroke. So long as
the men lay flat on the ground they were little molested, as a growth
of thistles hid them from the enemy's view, but any attempt to move
brought upon them a shower of bullets, to w