The story of the Battle of Colenso is mainly the narrative of the action of two important components of the Army of Natal.  Each of these was led by a dangerously brave man, whose impetuosity crippled the tactical scheme and whose method of working his command was, at least, unusual.  If in Hart and Long, who commanded the Artillery, the quality of personal courage had been less prominent it is probable that Colenso would not have filled up the cup of Stormberg and Magersfontein in that dark midsummer December week.

The naval guns on the west of the railway had the honour of opening the battle, and shelled Fort Wyllie for some time without eliciting any response.  Long joined Hildyard with another naval battery and two field batteries.  He was not only an impetuous man but he also belonged to the short range school of artillerists;[22] and he soon outpaced his infantry escort and came into action with his field batteries in the open a little in advance of a shallow intersecting donga, and within 1,100 yards of the Boer entrenchments across the river.  The naval battery had been compelled by the flight of the Kaffir ox drivers to outspan astride a deeper donga about a quarter of a mile in rear, to which Long had sent back his gun teams.  A terrific rifle and shrapnel fire, which the infantry escort which soon came up was powerless to subdue, was now opened upon the guns, and for an hour the batteries were beaten on until the casualties left but four men to each gun, and ammunition was running short.  Long, who was one of the first to be wounded, withdrew the dwindled gun detachments to the shallow donga and sent back for a fresh supply of ammunition, intending to resume fire as soon as the general attack developed.

All the while the batteries had been unsupported except by the escorting companies, which were not under Long’s orders, and no attempt was made by Hildyard’s or Barton’s brigade in rear to relieve or divert the pressure on the guns, which had succeeded in silencing temporarily some of the Boer artillery and in checking the rifle fire.

Earlier in the action Buller had been informed that the guns were “all right and comfortable,” but later reports gave him the impression that this cheery optimism was delusive, and that owing to loss of men and exhaustion of ammunition the artillery told off to support Hildyard was now permanently out of action.  The rest of the artillery was engaged in assisting Hart, who was in trouble, and Buller came to the conclusion that the attack on the Colenso kopjes must be withdrawn.

Hart’s Brigade was ordered to march “towards the Bridle Drift at the junction of the Doornkop Spruit and the Tugela, and to cross at that point.”  Here was yet another ambiguity.  As there were two “Iron Bridges” so also were there two “Bridle Drifts,” one on each side of the isthmus of the river loop, and yet another at the head of it.  The West Drift was unfordable on the morning of December 15, and a hasty sketch which had probably been filled in from hearsay evidence and which was Hart’s only map, showed the Doornkop Spruit as entering the Tugela below that Drift instead of just above the East Drift.[23] The sketch also duplicated the loop.