RY DUEL-BEGINNING OF THE ATTACK-RI

ith, O

ldt we looked back, and black c

right of it crept trains-one, two, three of them-packed with khaki, bristling

ore and behind, an open truck with a Maxim at the tail of all-puffed along on his right. Elandslaagte is a little village and railway station seventeen miles north-east of Ladysmith, where two days before the Boers had blown up a culvert and captured a train. That cut our direct c

ssing shriek of a shell-and plump it dropped, just under one of the Natal limbers. By luck it did not burst; but if the Boer ammunition contractor was suspect, it was plain that the Boer artillerist could lay a gun. Plump: plump: they came right into the battery; down went a horse; over went an ammunition-waggon. At that range the Volunteers' l

red what we should do next. We were on a billow of veldt that heaved across the valley: up it ran, road and rail; on the left rose tiers of hills, in front a huge green hill blocked our view, with a tangle of other hills crowding behind to peep over its shoulders. On the right, across the line, were meadows; up from them rose a wall of red-brown kopje; up over that a wall of grass-green veldt; over that was the enemy. We ate and sat and wondered what we should do next. Presently we saw

of the Highlanders. From our billow we could not see them move; but the green on the side of the line grew broader, and the green between them and the kopje grew narrower. Now the first dots were at the base-now hardly discernible on the brown hill flanks. Presently the second l

thunder the batteries tore past, wheeled, unlimbered as if they broke in halves. Then rattled and thundered the waggons, men gathered round the guns like the groups round a patient in an operation. And the first gun barked death. And then after all it was a false alarm. At the first shell you cou

ftward edge of the brown hill and joined our infantry in a broad green valley. The head of it was the second skyline we had seen; beyond was a dip, a swell of kopje, a deep valley, and beyond that a small sugar-loaf kopje to the left and

d limbers. Another and another, only now they fell harmlessly behind the guns, seeking vainly for the waggons and teams which were drawn snugly away under a hillside on the right. Another and another-bursting now on the clear space in rear o

ashed no more. Then our guns sent forth little white balloons of shrapnel, to right, to left, higher, lower, peppering the whole face. Now came rifle-fire-a few reports, and then a roll like the ungreased wheels of a farm cart. The

s of the pieces with scattering destruction. The third or fourth shell pitched clean into a labouring waggon with its double team of eight horses. It was full of shells. We held our breath for an explosion.

ers went on the right, the Gordons edged out to the extreme rightward base, with the long, long boulder-freckled face above them. The guns flung shrapnel across th

ur could bring them up to it. It drove through mackintoshes as if they were blotting-paper. The air was filled with hissing; underfoot you could see solid earth melting into mud, and mud flowing away in water. It blotted

-the storm of lead, of blood, of death. In a twinkling the first line was down behind rocks firing fast, and the bullets came flicking round them. Men stopped and started, staggered a

is mouth and a Mauser bullet through his leg; his company pushed on. Down again, fire again, up again, and on! Another ridge won and passed-and only a more hellish hail of bullets beyond it. More

gles rang out like cock-crow on a fine morning. The pipes shrieked of blood and the lust of glorious death. Fix bayonets! Staff officers rushed shouting from the rear, imploring, cajoling, cursing, slamming every man who could move into the line. Line-but it was a line no longer. It was a surging wave of men-Devons and Gordons, Manchester and Light Horse all mixed, inextricably; subalterns commanding regiments,

waiting, of preparation, and half an hour of attack. Bu