From now onwards it was as much a soldiers’ battle as Inkermann.  In the shelter of the wood the more eager of the three battalions had pressed to the front until the fringe of the trees was lined by men from all of them.  The difficulty of distinguishing particular regiments where all were clad alike made it impossible in the heat of action to keep any sort of formation.  So hot was the fire that for the time the advance was brought to a standstill, but the 69th battery, firing shrapnel at a range of 1400 yards, subdued the rifle fire, and about half-past eleven the infantry were able to push on once more.

Above the wood there was an open space some hundreds of yards across, bounded by a rough stone wall built for herding cattle.  A second wall ran at right angles to this down towards the wood.  An enfilading rifle fire had been sweeping across this open space, but the wall in front does not appear to have been occupied by the enemy, who held the kopje above it.  To avoid the cross fire the soldiers ran in single file under the shelter of the wall, which covered them to the right, and so reached the other wall across their front.  Here there was a second long delay, the men dribbling up from below, and firing over the top of the wall and between the chinks of the stones.  The Dublin Fusiliers, through being in a more difficult position, had been unable to get up as quickly as the others, and most of the hard-breathing excited men who crowded under the wall were of the Rifles and of the Irish Fusiliers.  The air was so full of bullets that it seemed impossible to live upon the other side of this shelter.  Two hundred yards intervened between the wall and the crest of the kopje.  And yet the kopje had to be cleared if the battle were to be won.

Out of the huddled line of crouching men an officer sprang shouting, and a score of soldiers vaulted over the wall and followed at his heels.  It was Captain Connor, of the Irish Fusiliers, but his personal magnetism carried up with him some of the Rifles as well as men of his own command.  He and half his little forlorn hope were struck down—­he, alas! to die the same night—­but there were other leaders as brave to take his place.  ‘Forrard away, men, forrard away!’ cried Nugent, of the Rifles.  Three bullets struck him, but he continued to drag himself up the boulder-studded hill.  Others followed, and others, from all sides they came running, the crouching, yelling, khaki-clad figures, and the supports rushed up from the rear.  For a time they were beaten down by their own shrapnel striking into them from behind, which is an amazing thing when one considers that the range was under 2000 yards.  It was here, between the wall and the summit, that Colonel Gunning, of the Rifles, and many other brave men met their end, some by our own bullets and some by those of the enemy; but the Boers thinned away in front of them, and the anxious onlookers from the plain below saw the waving helmets on the crest, and learned at last that all was well.