About 4.30 we were ourselves vigorously charged by the infantry, but a brisk fire, unerringly delivered, dispersed those who did not fall.
The fighting ceased with the day. In the evening, owing to the unexpected nature of the engagement, we had neither provisions nor coverings. A box of sardines between ten of us was our dinner, and the intense cold debarred us from the sleep that would have consoled us for our missing meal.
We remained in position, and at daybreak on May 1 the battle began again.
With the Germans, we were sent to occupy the big kopje against which the English attack had been most violent the night before. Its dominant position made it of great strategic value; but the Boers who had held it were guilty of the disastrous negligence, only too habitual with them, of retiring from it in order to sleep comfortably, instead of strengthening their position upon it.
The English, on the other hand, had spent the night digging trenches, and were firmly established on the ground they had gained in the two days. From the very beginning, therefore, our position was less favourable.
The ascent of Taba N'berg by a rocky, steep, and almost precipitous incline took about thirty-five minutes. So rugged was the hillside that it was impossible to use litters to bring down the wounded. We were forced to drag them down by the feet, or to make them slide down sitting. Our shelters were therefore often stained with long trails of blood.
Our horses were left at the bottom of the hill, without anyone on guard as usual. On reaching the top, we were greeted by steady infantry fire and by a few shrapnel shells, which we received without responding till ten o'clock. Then, leaning a little upon our right, we began to fire. We numbered about a hundred--fifty foreigners, and as many Boers; for the majority of those who had been with us the night before--perhaps 500 Europeans, and a rather smaller number of Burghers--had returned to the laager, and had not come back.
It is true that the day had been a hard one for them, and that they had had to bear the brunt of the battle under a heavy artillery fire.
Up to this moment nothing serious had been attempted. But about eleven o'clock the whole of the Royal Canadian contingent arrived in open formation. They were greeted on their passage by our two 75 millimetre guns, which had taken up a position on our left at the foot of the kopje.
I heard afterwards that the guns, though they had been remarkably well laid, had not been very effective, the shells with fuses having fallen without exploding. In consequence of this, only two or three men, who had been struck full by the shells as if they had been bullets, had been killed. Several others were knocked over by the shock, but picked themselves up unharmed. I got this information later from a superior officer of an English regiment who had been present in the engagement.