Captain Gough’s company was detached to lead the right assault, and Major Thesiger’s the left, each having with it a section of C Company.  Captains Paley and Stephens were to bring their companies close up in support, while Lieutenant Byrne was in command of E Company, forming the reserve.  Only a small detachment of ambulance men with four stretchers followed the column as it moved off a few minutes after ten o’clock, across open ground by Observation Hill, and turned westward towards its objective, which could just be seen, a dim rounded mass like a darker cloud in the dark sky.  The guides Ashby and Thornhill had no difficulty in finding their way without other landmarks, for every inch of the ground is familiar to them both.  An unlooked-for obstacle, however, presented itself as they neared the nek that joins Thornhill’s Kop with Rietfontein on Pepworth’s Ridge.  A break in clouds that hung behind Surprise Hill let light through from the crescent moon that was still well above the rugged Drakensberg Crags.

In that light, subdued though it was, a man crossing the nek would have shown up sharply, and Boer sentries always keep well down where they can watch the sky-line.  Our troops, naturally anxious not to discover themselves prematurely, lay down in a convenient donga and waited for darkness.  There they had to lie an hour or longer, until the nearest ridges were again merged in the gloom of their surroundings, and the more distant hills became vague shadows, perceptible only to the second sight of men who are familiar with Nature in all aspects.  Then the column, moving silently, advanced towards the railway line, which few could see until they were stopped by the barbed wire that fences it on each side.  The necessity for cutting this was another awkward hindrance.  All officers, however, had come provided for such an emergency with wire-nippers.  The anxiety was painfully tense as men listened to the sharp click of these instruments, and heard the severed wires drop with a clatter that struck harp-like across the deep silence, and went vibrating along the fence towards a Boer camp where perhaps some sentry, more alert than his comrades, might catch the meaning of such sounds.  No alarm followed, however, as the work of wire-cutting went on across the railway and from enclosure to enclosure, care being taken to bend the wires only in one place so that they could be bent back, leaving a space just wide enough for successive companies in fours to defile through.

Thus by slow degrees they gained the foot of Surprise Hill, and began the difficult ascent.  Colonel Metcalfe, and probably most of his men, expected that they would have been met by Boer rifle fire long before this and compelled to win their way with the bayonet.  It seemed almost impossible to believe that the Boers, after one sharp lesson, would keep no better watch than to let us creep up to their stronghold unopposed.  Suddenly a challenge “Wie kom dar?” rang