not knowing then that the young officer had been left a prisoner in the enemy’s hands.  He was well treated by his captors, except that they kept him under fire from his own men so long as a forward position could be maintained, and when that became too hot they forced him to creep back with them to the cover of other rocks.  He did not want much forcing, being glad enough to wriggle across the intervening space, where bullets fell unpleasantly thick, as fast as possible.  There he lay close, but kept his eyes open, and saw something that may furnish a key to the success of Transvaal Boers in scaling a difficult height that must have been quite strange to them.

Prominent in one group was a young man whom Hunt-Grubbe thought he recognised.  For a long time the face puzzled him, but at last he remembered having seen a counterfeit presentment of it, or one very similar, in a photographic group of the Bester family.  A Bester would know every rock and cranny of that hill with a familiarity which would make light or darkness indifferent to him.  Lieutenant Hunt-Grubbe made mental notes also of Boer tactics, by which they gave a great impression of numbers.  A group would gather at one point and keep up rapid firing for some time, then double under cover to some rocks thirty yards off, and discharge their rifles there, but always taking care not to throw any shots away.

In spite of these dodges and good shooting, however, the Boers could make no headway against the Manchesters, who were by this time extended across the stony plateau under fire from Boer guns posted among trees on the far side of Bester’s Valley.  Neither side in fact could move either to advance or retire without exposing itself on open ground.  Therefore they stayed blazing away at each other until the grey dawn gave place to swift sunrise.  Then the Boers, who had a heliograph with them behind Intombi Spur, flashed to Bulwaan the signal “Maak Vecht,” and our friend “Puffing Billy”—­as the big 6-inch Creusot is called—­promptly made fight in a way that was astonishing in a weapon whose grooves must be worn nearly smooth by frequent firing.  He threw shell after shell with vicious rapidity and remarkable accuracy on to the plateau of Caesar’s Camp, but the shells fortunately did not fall among our men or burst well.

Just as Colonel Metcalfe arrived at Caesar’s Camp, with four companies of the Rifle Brigade to reinforce and prolong our fighting line, the Boer gunners turned their attention to another point, where, in the low ground among trees by Klip River, Major Abdy was bringing the 53rd Field Battery into action.  This proved to be the turning-point of the fight on the eastern spur of Bester’s Ridge.