Why these same saddle-back hills were not occupied by our
own people is, it must be confessed, an insoluble mystery. In a
hollow on one flank were the 18th Hussars and the mounted infantry.
On the other were the eighteen motionless guns, limbered up and
ready, the horses fidgeting and stamping in the raw morning air.
And then suddenly - could that be they? An officer with a telescope
stared intently and pointed. Another and another turned a steady
field glass towards the same place. And then the men could see
also, and a little murmur of interest ran down the ranks.
A long sloping hill - Talana Hill - olive-green in hue, was
stretching away in front of them. At the summit it rose into a
rounded crest. The mist was clearing, and the curve was
hard-outlined against the limpid blue of the morning sky. On this,
some two and a half miles or three miles off, a little group of
black dots had appeared. The clear edge of the skyline had become
serrated with moving figures. They clustered into a knot, then
opened again, and then -
There had been no smoke, but there came a long crescendo hoot,
rising into a shrill wail. The shell hummed over the soldiers like
a great bee, and sloshed into soft earth behind them. Then
another - and yet another - and yet another. But there was no time to
heed them, for there was the hillside and there the enemy. So at it
again with the good old murderous obsolete heroic tactics of the
British tradition! There are times when, in spite of science and
book-lore, the best plan is the boldest plan, and it is well to fly
straight at your enemy's throat, facing the chance that your
strength may fail before you can grasp it. The cavalry moved off
round the enemy's left flank. The guns dashed to the front,
unlimbered, and opened fire. The infantry were moved round in the
direction of Sandspruit, passing through the little town of Dundee,
where the women and children came to the doors and windows to cheer
them. It was thought that the hill was more accessible from that
side. The Leicesters and one field battery - the 67th - were left
behind to protect the camp and to watch the Newcastle Road upon the
west. At seven in the morning all was ready for the assault.
Two military facts of importance had already been disclosed. One
was that the Boer percussion-shells were useless in soft ground, as
hardly any of them exploded; the other that the Boer guns could
outrange our ordinary fifteen-pounder field gun, which had been the
one thing perhaps in the whole British equipment upon which we were
prepared to pin our faith.
