The bulk of the infantry was posted in the east loop, so as to appear ready to cross the river and support the feint attack between the loops.  As soon as the guns had driven the enemy into their trenches on Brakfontein, a pontoon bridge was to be thrown across the river south of Hunger’s Drift, and the guns on Zwart Kop were to open on Vaalkrantz, and when this had been sufficiently bombarded, it would be carried by the infantry, and guns would be brought up to enfilade the Boer line; while the cavalry “when feasible” would push through under the ridge and threaten it from the rear.

It was a pretty tactical scheme, with much of the War-Game about it, and it depended for its success upon the practicability of using Vaalkrantz as an artillery position, and upon the correctness of the assumption that the enemy was not in force eastward of it.

Buller was not successful in placing his guns on Zwart Kop unnoticed by the enemy, who was warned in time.  After Spion Kop, Botha went to Pretoria, and Schalk Burger took furlough.  B. Viljoen was now in command.  He saw the danger and applied to Joubert at Ladysmith for help, who thought he was over-anxious but sent him a heavy gun.  Little however would have been done but for the intervention of the two civilian Presidents.  Steyn appealed to Kruger who, having tried without success to induce Joubert to take command on the Upper Tugela, fell in with Steyn’s suggestion that Martin Prinsloo, a Free Stater, should go there; and Botha was ordered back from Pretoria.  Prinsloo took command of the Brakfontein position, Viljoen remaining on Vaalkrantz.

At sunrise on February 5 began Buller’s third attempt to relieve Ladysmith.  Wynne, who had succeeded Woodgate in command of the 11th Brigade, advanced in two lines up the slope towards Brakfontein, supported by the fire of forty-four guns.  Nearly six hours passed before any reply was vouchsafed by the enemy.  At mid-day some guns on Wynne’s left front opened on the batteries, but not a shot was fired by the Boers in the trenches.

Already one field battery had been detached from the left of the line of guns, the first movement in the real attack, and had taken up a position to cover the pontoon troop which was throwing a bridge across the Tugela near Hunger’s Drift.  At noon the completion of the bridge was signalled to the feint attack.  The batteries fronting the Brakfontein ridge were withdrawn, and Wynne’s brigade which, having been marched up the slope, was now marched down again, came under a heavy but almost innocuous infantry fire, which at last broke out on Brakfontein.

To the Boers it appeared that another attack, determined while it lasted, but devoid of backbone, had been kept at bay.  The guns on Zwart Kop opened on Vaalkrantz as soon as the detached battery was seen to be in motion; and the other batteries came into action as they arrived from the Brakfontein demonstration.  There was some annoyance from casual rifle fire and a Maxim posted on the heights S.E. of the loop, but it did not seriously interfere with the work of the bridge-builders.