Two battalions of the 4th Brigade, which had been lent to Hart, were so far behind that as only two or three hours of daylight remained, he decided to attack without them.  For impetuous gallantry the advance of the Irish regiments was not surpassed by any other exploit in the War.  Working up on difficult ground to the sound of the Regimental calls, and then almost brought to a standstill by the barbed wire fences of the railway, which became a trap of death, they rushed the slope, pushing the enemy’s outposts before them, and won the crest:  and then in the failing light which compelled the supporting artillery to discontinue the bombardment and relieve the enemy from the pressure of shrapnel, they saw the Boer positions still above them.  The crest was false.

It was a cruel disappointment to brave men who had struggled so well, but they did not flinch.  A charge was made across the plateau, but it soon was withered by fire and few of the men reached the Boer trenches.  Two more battalions of the 4th Brigade arrived at dawn, but the reinforcement came too late.  The troops were reorganized, as far as possible, on the slope leading down from the crest, but were eventually compelled to retire across the railway to the lower ground by flanking fire, which Hart succeeded in silencing, and was able to reoccupy the dead ground below the false crest with fresh troops.

The failure of the attack did not deter Buller from pursuing his plan, and on February 24 he proposed to renew it and to operate against Railway Hill, which stands fourth in the line of hills running in a N.E. direction from Horseshoe Hill to Pieter’s Hill; but by Hart’s suggestion the movement was postponed, and in the end, abandoned.  The greater part of his Brigade was dangerously and densely posted on the lower ground, and when during the night a surprise party of Boers opened fire, there was some fear of a general panic.  The situation was precarious.  The Boer line had not been pierced:  on each side it outflanked Buller and fronted the Tugela loops in which the greater portion of his force was huddled.  It was fortunate for him that DeWet had gone to the Modder.

On the night of February 24 began the third movement in zigzag.  The general direction of the first was N.E.; of the second W.S.W.; of the third East.  It was discovered that there was a path by which troops could pass east of Naval Hill down to the right bank out of the enemy’s reach, and that they could cross the Tugela by pontoon.  Buller then determined to transfer the bulk of his force back to the Hlangwhane side of the river over the pontoon bridge by which he had crossed to the left bank three days before.  The plan involved not only the concentration of a clubbed and unwieldy force on the right bank, but also the necessity of keeping it there until the passage of the last detail allowed the pontoon bridge to be taken up and moved to the new place of crossing, three miles below.