Towards noon there was a lull in the storm.  After nine hours’ fighting, the combatants were face to face on the plateau and the advantage lay apparently with the attacking Boers, who, in spite of the strong re-inforcements which had been sent up by White, were still clinging to the southern crest of Caesar’s Camp, and who on their left had won a footing close to the knoll on Wagon Hill, and were effectively checking the details on Wagon Point.  White having used up all the infantry which he could safely spare from the other positions on the perimeter, now sent the cavalry to the rescue.

The pause in the fight, which seems to have been occasioned by the exhaustion and discouragement of the enemy, and which, perforce, had to be acquiesced in by the defence, led White to report to Buller soon after noon, that the Boers had been beaten off for the time being, but that a renewal of the attack was probable.  It came at the moment when he was sending the despatch from his Head Quarters on Convent Hill, and when Ian Hamilton was preparing a counter-attack round the shoulder of Wagon Point.  A small body of Free Staters rushed the summit of Wagon Point, and by their impact drove many of the defenders down the reverse slope.  But those who remained were resolute.  After a hand to hand fight between Boer commandants and British officers around the emplacement which had been prepared for the heavy gun, the position was recovered and a reinforcement of dismounted Hussars came up in time to secure it.

On Wagon Hill also the struggle was renewed, and here also the defence was strengthened by some dismounted cavalry which had been waiting in support in rear of Caesar’s Camp.  It was evident that if the enemy were not dislodged from Wagon Hill during daylight, he would be able to establish himself irremovably after dark, when all the waverers would come up under the protection of the night.  At 3 in the afternoon White reported to Buller that the attack had been renewed and that he was “very hard pressed.”  He called the Devons to his aid from their post on the northern section of the perimeter, and in a storm of rain and thunder, themselves a resistless tempest, they cleared Wagon Hill with magazine and bayonet.

On Caesar’s Camp the enemy had already wavered, and the crest was in possession of the defence; and now all along the line from Wagon Point to the eastern shoulder the Boers were scuttling down the slopes toward the flooded dongas below under a hail of rifle fire.  The battle, which had begun soon after midnight, was continued until near sunset and resulted in the discomfiture of the only serious attempt made by the Boers to capture Ladysmith by offensive action.  The success was due primarily to the determination of an enfeebled garrison, which had already undergone a siege of nine weeks; and secondarily to the tactical mistakes of the enemy, who had allowed troops to concentrate upon the Platrand which should have been contained and pinned to their posts at other sections of the perimeter of defence.  Not a few of the commandos detailed for the assault on the Platrand flinched, yet it almost succeeded; and if these had been distributed to positions elsewhere, they would not have incurred great danger, and their presence would probably have prevented the transfer of the Devons and of the mounted troops to Wagon Hill at the critical moment.