For Hours The Combatants Were So Near That A Stone Or
A Taunt Could Be Thrown From One To The Other.
Some scattered
sangars still held their own, though the Boers had passed them.
One
such, manned by fourteen privates of the Manchester Regiment,
remained untaken, but had only two defenders left at the end of the
bloody day.
With the coming of the light the 53rd Field Battery, the one which
had already done so admirably at Lombard's Kop, again deserved well
of its country. It was impossible to get behind the Boers and fire
straight at their position, so every shell fired had to skim over
the heads of our own men upon the ridge and so pitch upon the
reverse slope. Yet so accurate was the fire, carried on under an
incessant rain of shells from the big Dutch gun on Bulwana, that
not one shot miscarried and that Major Abdy and his men succeeded
in sweeping the further slope without loss to our own fighting
line. Exactly the same feat was equally well performed at the other
end of the position by Major Blewitt's 21st Battery, which was
exposed to an even more searching fire than the 53rd. Any one who
has seen the iron endurance of British gunners and marvelled at the
answering shot which flashes out through the very dust of the
enemy's exploding shell, will understand how fine must have been
the spectacle of these two batteries working in the open, with the
ground round them sharded with splinters.
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