The road was irregular and the night was moonless.  On either side the black loom of the hills bulked vaguely through the darkness.  The column tramped stolidly along, the Fusiliers in front, the guns and Gloucesters behind.  Several times a short halt was called to make sure of the bearings.  At last, in the black cold hours which come between midnight and morning, the column swung to the left out of the road.  In front of them, hardly visible, stretched a long black kopje.  It was the very Nicholson’s Nek which they had come to occupy.  Carleton and Adye must have heaved a sigh of relief as they realised that they had actually struck it.  The force was but two hundred yards from the position, and all had gone without a hitch.  And yet in those two hundred yards there came an incident which decided the fate both of their enterprise and of themselves.

Out of the darkness there blundered and rattled five horsemen, their horses galloping, the loose stones flying around them.  In the dim light they were gone as soon as seen.  Whence coming, whither going, no one knows, nor is it certain whether it was design or ignorance or panic which sent them riding so wildly through the darkness.  Somebody fired.  A sergeant of the Fusiliers took the bullet through his hand.  Some one else shouted to fix bayonets.  The mules which carried the spare ammunition kicked and reared.  There was no question of treachery, for they were led by our own men, but to hold two frightened mules, one with either hand, is a feat for a Hercules.  They lashed and tossed and bucked themselves loose, and an instant afterwards were flying helter skelter through the column.  Nearly all the mules caught the panic.  In vain the men held on to their heads.  In the mad rush they were galloped over and knocked down by the torrent of frightened creatures.  In the gloom of that early hour the men must have thought that they were charged by cavalry.  The column was dashed out of all military order as effectively as if a regiment of dragoons had ridden over them.  When the cyclone had passed, and the men had with many a muttered curse gathered themselves into their ranks once more, they realised how grave was the misfortune which had befallen them.  There, where those mad hoofs still rattled in the distance, were their spare cartridges, their shells, and their cannon.  A mountain gun is not drawn upon wheels, but is carried in adjustable parts upon mule-back.  A wheel had gone south, a trail east, a chase west.  Some of the cartridges were strewn upon the road.  Most were on their way back to Ladysmith.  There was nothing for it but to face this new situation and to determine what should be done.