Shrapnel shells were also flung from both flanks and ripped the dusty plain with their scattering bullets.  But the Artillery stood to their work like men, and though they apparently produced no impression on the Boer guns, did not suffer as severely as might have been expected, losing no more than fifteen officers and men altogether.  At intervals of ten minutes the batteries withdrew in beautiful order and ceremony and defiled across the second pontoon bridge.  Meanwhile Wynne’s Brigade had advanced to within twelve hundred yards of the Brakfontein position and retired, drawing the enemy’s heavy fire; the three brigades under Clery had moved to the right near Munger’s Drift; the Cavalry were massed in the hollows at the foot of Swartkop; and the Engineers had constructed the third pontoon bridge, performing their business with excellent method and despatch under a sharp fire from Boer skirmishers and a Maxim.

The six batteries and the howitzers now took up positions opposite Vaal Krantz, and seventy guns began to shell this ridge in regular preparation and to reply to three Boer guns which had now opened from Doornkloof and our extreme right.  A loud and crashing cannonade developed.  At midday the Durham Light Infantry of Lyttelton’s Brigade crossed the third pontoon bridge and advanced briskly along the opposite bank on the Vaal Krantz ridge.  They were supported by the 3rd King’s Royal Rifles, and behind these the other two battalions of the Brigade strengthened the attack.  The troops moved across the open in fine style, paying no attention to the enemy’s guns on Doornkloof, which burst their shrapnel at seven thousand yards (shrapnel at seven thousand yards!) with remarkable accuracy.  In an hour the leading companies had reached the foot of the ridge, and the active riflemen could be seen clambering swiftly up.  As the advance continued one of the Boer Vickers-Maxim guns which was posted in rear of Vaal Krantz found it wise to retire and galloped off unscathed through a tremendous fire from our artillery:  a most wonderful escape.

The Durham Light Infantry carried the hill at the point of the bayonet, losing seven officers and sixty or seventy men, and capturing five Boer prisoners, besides ten horses and some wounded, Most of the enemy, however, had retired before the attack, unable to endure the appalling concentration of artillery which had prepared it.  Among those who remained to fight to the last were five or six armed Kaffirs, one of whom shot an officer of the Durhams.  To these no quarter was given.  Their employment by the Dutch in this war shows that while they furiously complain of Khama’s defence of his territory against their raiding parties on the ground that white men must be killed by white men, they have themselves no such scruples.  There is no possible doubt about the facts set forth above, and the incident should be carefully noted by the public.