Our mounted men, Guides, 9th Lancers, and a few Mounted Infantry, marched out an hour before dawn.  A line of kopjes stood up before us, rising out of the bare plain like islands out of the sea, and as we rounded the point and opened up the inner semicircle of hills, we could distinguish the white waggon tops of the Boer laager in a deep niche in the hillside, and see the men collecting and mounting and galloping about.  By-and-by, as we advanced, there came a singing noise, and suddenly a great pillar of red dust shot up out of the ground a little to our left.  “That’s a most extraordinary thing,” thinks I, deeply interested, “what land whale of these plains blows sand up in that fashion?” Then I saw several heads turned in that direction, and heard some one say something about a shell, and finally I succeeded in grasping, not without a thrill, the meaning of the phenomenon.

The infantry attack came off on the opposite side of the ridge from where we were, and we could see nothing of it.  But we heard.  As we drew alongside of the hills, suddenly there broke out a low, quickly uttered sound; dull reports so rapid as to make a rippling noise.  The day was beautifully fine, still, and hot.  There was no smoke or movement of any kind along the rocky hill crest, and yet the whole place was throbbing with Mausers.  This was the first time that any of us had listened to modern rifle fire.  It was delivered at our infantry, who on that side were closing with their enemy.

The fire did not last long, though in the short time it did terrible damage, and men of the Northumberlands and Grenadiers and Coldstreams were dropping fast as they clambered up the rocky hillside.  But that brief burst of firing was the battle of Belmont.  In that little space of time the position had been lost and won, and we had paid our price for it.  During the march across the flat, as I have been told since, our loss was comparatively light; but when the climbing of the hill began, numbers of Boers who had been waiting ready poured in their fire.  All along the ridge, from behind every rock and stone, the smokeless Mausers cracked (it was then the fire rose to that rippling noise we were listening to on the other side of the range), and the sleet of bullets, slanting down the hill, swept our fellows down by scores.  But there was never any faltering.  They had been told to take the hill.  Two hundred and fifty stopped on the way through no fault of theirs.  The rest went on and took it.  That’s the way our British infantry put a job through.

Soon, on our side, scattered bands of the enemy began to emerge from the kopjes and gallop north, whilst right up at the top of the valley their long convoy of waggons came into view, trekking away as hard as they could go, partly obscured by clouds of dust.  We made some attempts to stop them, but our numbers were too few.  Though defeated, they were not in any way demoralised, and the cool way in which they turned to meet us showed that they knew they were safe from the infantry, and did not fear our very weak cavalry.  We did not venture to press the matter beyond long shots.  Had we done so, it was evident we should have been cut up.