On February 21st Buller threw his pontoon bridge over the river near Colenso, and the same evening his army began to cross.  It was at once evident that the Boer resistance had by no means collapsed.  Wynne’s Lancashire Brigade were the first across, and found themselves hotly engaged before nightfall.  The low kopjes in front of them were blazing with musketry fire.  The brigade held its own, but lost the Brigadier (the second in a month) and 150 rank and file.  Next morning the main body of the infantry was passed across, and the army was absolutely committed to the formidable and unnecessary enterprise of fighting its way straight to Ladysmith.

The force in front had weakened, however, both in numbers and in morale.  Some thousands of the Freestaters had left in order to defend their own country from the advance of Roberts, while the rest were depressed by as much of the news as was allowed by their leaders to reach them.  But the Boer is a tenacious fighter, and many a brave man was still to fall before Buller and White should shake hands in the High Street of Ladysmith.

The first obstacle which faced the army, after crossing the river, was a belt of low rolling ground, which was gradually cleared by the advance of our infantry.  As night closed in the advance lines of Boers and British were so close to each other that incessant rifle fire was maintained until morning, and at more than one point small bodies of desperate riflemen charged right up to the bayonets of our infantry.  The morning found us still holding our positions all along the line, and as more and more of our infantry came up and gun after gun roared into action we began to push our stubborn enemy northwards.  On the 21st the Dorsets, Middlesex, and Somersets had borne the heat of the day.  On the 22nd it was the Royal Lancasters, followed by the South Lancashires, who took up the running.  It would take the patience and also the space of a Kinglake in this scrambling broken fight to trace the doings of those groups of men who strove and struggled through the rifle fire.  All day a steady advance was maintained over the low kopjes, until by evening we were faced by the more serious line of the Pieter’s Hills.  The operations had been carried out with a monotony of gallantry.  Always the same extended advance, always the same rattle of Mausers and clatter of pom-poms from a ridge, always the same victorious soldiers on the barren crest, with a few crippled Boers before them and many crippled comrades behind.  They were expensive triumphs, and yet every one brought them nearer to their goal.  And now, like an advancing tide, they lapped along the base of Pieter’s Hill.  Could they gather volume enough to carry themselves over?  The issue of the long-drawn battle and the fate of Ladysmith hung upon the question.