This time the shell came.  Faint whirr waxed presently to furious scream, and the white cloud flung itself on to the very line of our batteries unlimbering on the brow.  Whirr and scream—­another dashed itself into the field between the guns and limbers.  Another and another, only now they fell harmlessly behind the guns, seeking vainly for the waggons and teams which were drawn snugly away under a hillside on the right.  Another and another—­bursting now on the clear space in rear of the guns between our right and left infantry columns.  All the infantry were lying down, so well folded in the ground that I could only see the Devons on the left.  The Manchesters and Gordons on the right seemed to be swallowed by the veldt.

Then between the bangs of their artillery struck the hoarser bay of our own.  Ball after ball of white smoke alighted on the kopje—­the first at the base, the second over, the third jump on the Boer gun.  By the fourth the Boer gun flashed no more.  Then our guns sent forth little white balloons of shrapnel, to right, to left, higher, lower, peppering the whole face.  Now came rifle-fire—­a few reports, and then a roll like the ungreased wheels of a farm cart.  The Imperial Light Horse was at work on the extreme right.  And now as the guns pealed faster and faster we saw mounted men riding up the nearer swell of kopje and diving over the edge.  Shrapnel followed; some dived and came up no more.

The guns limbered up and moved across to a nearer position towards the right.  As they moved the Boer gun opened again—­Lord, but the German gunners knew their business!—­punctuating the intervals and distances of the pieces with scattering destruction.  The third or fourth shell pitched clean into a labouring waggon with its double team of eight horses.  It was full of shells.  We held our breath for an explosion.  But, when the smoke cleared, only the near wheeler was on his side, and the waggon had a wheel in the air.  The batteries unlimbered and bayed again, and again the Boer guns were silent.  Now for the attack.

The attack was to be made on their front and their left flank—­along the hog-back of the big kopje.  The Devons on our left formed for the front attack; the Manchesters went on the right, the Gordons edged out to the extreme rightward base, with the long, long boulder-freckled face above them.  The guns flung shrapnel across the valley; the watchful cavalry were in leash, straining towards the enemy’s flanks.  It was about a quarter to five, and it seemed curiously dark for the time of day.

No wonder—­for as the men moved forward before the enemy the heavens were opened.  From the eastern sky swept a sheer sheet of rain.  With the first stabbing drops horses turned their heads away, trembling, and no whip or spur could bring them up to it.  It drove through mackintoshes as if they were blotting-paper.  The air was filled with hissing; underfoot you could see solid earth melting into mud, and mud flowing away in water.  It blotted out hill and dale and enemy in one grey curtain of swooping water.  You would have said that the heavens had opened to drown the wrath of man.  And through it the guns still thundered and the khaki columns pushed doggedly on.