Botha’s plans appear to have been to work through Zululand and then strike at Natal, an operation which would be the more easy as it would be conducted a considerable distance from the railway line.  Pushing on a few days after his successful action with Gough, he crossed the Zulu frontier, and had in front of him an almost unimpeded march as far as the Tugela.  Crossing this far from the British base of power, his force could raid the Greytown district and raise recruits among the Dutch farmers, laying waste one of the few spots in South Africa which had been untouched by the blight of war.  All this lay before him, and in his path nothing save only two small British posts which might be either disregarded or gathered up as he passed.  In an evil moment for himself, tempted by the thought of the supplies which they might contain, he stopped to gather them up, and the force of the wave of invasion broke itself as upon two granite rocks.

These two so-called forts were posts of very modest strength, a chain of which had been erected at the time of the old Zulu war.  Fort Itala, the larger, was garrisoned by 300 men of the 5th Mounted Infantry, drawn from the Dublin Fusiliers, Middlesex, Dorsets, South Lancashires, and Lancashire Fusiliers—­most of them old soldiers of many battles.  They had two guns of the 69th R.F.A., the same battery which had lost a section the week before.  Major Chapman, of the Dublins, was in command.

Upon September 25th the small garrison heard that the main force of the Boers was sweeping towards them, and prepared to give them a soldiers’ welcome.  The fort is situated upon the flank of a hill, on the summit of which, a mile from the main trenches, a strong outpost was stationed.  It was upon this that the first force of the attack broke at midnight of September 25th.  The garrison, eighty strong, was fiercely beset by several hundred Boers, and the post was eventually carried after a sharp and bloody contest.  Kane, of the South Lancashires, died with the words ‘No surrender’ upon his lips, and Potgieter, a Boer leader, was pistolled by Kane’s fellow officer, Lefroy.  Twenty of the small garrison fell, and the remainder were overpowered and taken.

With this vantage-ground in their possession the Boers settled down to the task of overwhelming the main position.  They attacked upon three sides, and until morning the force was raked from end to end by unseen riflemen.  The two British guns were put out of action and the maxim was made unserviceable by a bullet.  At dawn there was a pause in the attack, but it recommenced and continued without intermission until sunset.  The span betwixt the rising of the sun and its last red glow in the west is a long one for the man who spends it at his ease, but how never-ending must have seemed the hours to this handful of men, outnumbered, surrounded, pelted by bullets, parched with thirst, torn with anxiety, holding desperately on with dwindling numbers to their frail defences!