It was late after noon before the advance began.  It was hard, among those billowing hills, to make out the exact limits of the enemy’s position.  All that was certain was that they were there, and that we meant having them out if it were humanly possible.  ’The enemy are there,’ said Ian Hamilton to his infantry; ’I hope you will shift them out before sunset—­in fact I know you will.’  The men cheered and laughed.  In long open lines they advanced across the veld, while the thunder of the two batteries behind them told the Boer gunners that it was their turn now to know what it was to be outmatched.

The idea was to take the position by a front and a flank attack, but there seems to have been some difficulty in determining which was the front and which the flank.  In fact, it was only by trying that one could know.  General White with his staff had arrived from Ladysmith, but refused to take the command out of French’s hands.  It is typical of White’s chivalrous spirit that within ten days he refused to identify himself with a victory when it was within his right to do so, and took the whole responsibility for a disaster at which he was not present.  Now he rode amid the shells and watched the able dispositions of his lieutenant.

About half-past three the action had fairly begun.  In front of the advancing British there lay a rolling hill, topped by a further one.  The lower hill was not defended, and the infantry, breaking from column of companies into open order, advanced over it.  Beyond was a broad grassy valley which led up to the main position, a long kopje flanked by a small sugar-loaf one Behind the green slope which led to the ridge of death an ominous and terrible cloud was driving up, casting its black shadow over the combatants.  There was the stillness which goes before some great convulsion of nature.  The men pressed on in silence, the soft thudding of their feet and the rattle of their sidearms filling the air with a low and continuous murmur.  An additional solemnity was given to the attack by that huge black cloud which hung before them.

The British guns had opened at a range of 4400 yards, and now against the swarthy background there came the quick smokeless twinkle of the Boer reply.  It was an unequal fight, but gallantly sustained.  A shot and another to find the range; then a wreath of smoke from a bursting shell exactly where the guns had been, followed by another and another.  Overmatched, the two Boer pieces relapsed into a sulky silence, broken now and again by short spurts of frenzied activity.  The British batteries turned their attention away from them, and began to search the ridge with shrapnel and prepare the way for the advancing infantry.

The scheme was that the Devonshires should hold the enemy in front while the main attack from the left flank was carried out by the Gordons, the Manchesters, and the Imperial Light Horse.  The words ‘front’ and ‘flank,’ however, cease to have any meaning with so mobile and elastic a force, and the attack which was intended to come from the left became really a frontal one, while the Devons found themselves upon the right flank of the Boers.  At the moment of the final advance the great black cloud had burst, and a torrent of rain lashed into the faces of the men.  Slipping and sliding upon the wet grass, they advanced to the assault.