The original plan was that the taking of Vaalkranz should be the first step towards the outflanking of Brakfontein and the rolling up of the whole Boer position.  But after the first move the British attitude became one of defence rather than of attack.  Whatever the general and ultimate effect of these operations may have been, it is beyond question that their contemplation was annoying and bewildering in the extreme to those who were present.  The position on February 6th was this.  Over the river upon the hill was a single British brigade, exposed to the fire of one enormous gun—­a 96-pound Creusot, the longest of all Long Toms—­which was stationed upon Doornkloof, and of several smaller guns and pom-poms which spat at them from nooks and crevices of the hills.  On our side were seventy-two guns, large and small, all very noisy and impotent.  It is not too much to say, as it appears to me, that the Boers have in some ways revolutionised our ideas in regard to the use of artillery, by bringing a fresh and healthy common-sense to bear upon a subject which had been unduly fettered by pedantic rules.  The Boer system is the single stealthy gun crouching where none can see it.  The British system is the six brave guns coming into action in line of full interval, and spreading out into accurate dressing visible to all men.  ‘Always remember,’ says one of our artillery maxims, ‘that one gun is no gun.’  Which is prettier on a field-day, is obvious, but which is business—­let the many duels between six Boer guns and sixty British declare.  With black powder it was useless to hide the gun, as its smoke must betray it.  With smokeless powder the guns are so invisible that it was only by the detection with powerful glasses of the dust from the trail on the recoil that the officers were ever able to localise the guns against which they were fighting.  But if the Boers had had six guns in line, instead of one behind that kopje, and another between those distant rocks, it would not have been so difficult to say where they were.  Again, British traditions are all in favour of planting guns close together.  At this very action of Vaalkranz the two largest guns were so placed that a single shell bursting between them would have disabled them both.  The officer who placed them there, and so disregarded in a vital matter the most obvious dictates of common-sense, would probably have been shocked by any want of technical smartness, or irregularity in the routine drill.  An over-elaboration of trifles, and a want of grip of common-sense, and of adaptation to new ideas, is the most serious and damaging criticism which can be levelled against our army.  That the function of infantry is to shoot, and not to act like spearmen in the Middle Ages; that the first duty of artillery is so far as is possible to be invisible—­these are two of the lessons which have been driven home so often during the war, that even our hidebound conservatism can hardly resist them.