On the 4th the troops began to move. Generals Hart and Hildyard crossed from the British left to the right; General Lyttelton withdrew from One Tree Hill and was replaced by Wynne; in all directions great clouds of dust rose from the rough tracks, indicating to the eyes of the expectant Boers the march of thousands of men. With dawn of the 5th the cavalry struck its camp on the left and also moved off—the squadrons at a walk. Pontoon bridges already spanned the Tugela to the east of Potgieter's Drift, allowing men readily to cross from the neighbourhood of One Tree Hill to the tongue of land enclosed by the river which runs up to Vaal Krantz. Yet another bridge was to be built at Munger's Drift, on the further side of the tongue, to allow the passage of troops from this tongue to the northern bank of the Tugela. The engineers with the pontoon train were ready, waiting to get to their work as soon as the demonstration against Brakfontein fully occupied the attention of the Boers.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN CAMP ON THE TUGELA.
F. W. Burton.]
During the action at Vaal Krantz, the balloon came under heavy fire, and had to be retired out of range by means of the rope which holds it captive.
Demonstration towards Brakfontein.
Feb. 5, 1900.] The Artillery get into Action.
[Feb. 5, 1900.
The morning was hot and misty, and not till after 7 a.m. could the battle begin. Then the six batteries of field artillery deployed in front of One Tree Hill and opened a vigorous fire upon a quite invisible enemy. There was nothing to aim at except the Boer trenches, which appeared, as usual, untenanted. The enemy were grimly watching, with orders not to return a shot till the British infantry approached within 500 yards. Next, two battalions, the York and Lancasters and the South Lancashires, extended and moved forward towards Brakfontein in a long thin line of brown dots, followed by the batteries in succession. "Round the guns the long thin lines split and joined together again in front and went on," writes Mr. Atkins. "Here and there the lines were thick where the men had not yet had room to extend. Officers blew their whistles and threw their arms apart, and the knotted part of the line moved crabwise until the proper intervals were observed." Gradually the advance developed till the Boers began to feel real alarm for Brakfontein. The infernal thunder of the field guns and 4·7's, which had now joined in the game, echoed up through the valleys and reverberated among the mountain heights. And then at last the enemy's guns began to reply. These were barely a dozen in number, but they were well-placed; on Doorn Kloof was a huge 6-inch Creusot, which did not as yet disclose its presence; on the eastern slope of Spion Kop were two Krupp field guns, and at other points along the line were the much dreaded "Pom-Poms." Towards ten o'clock all the smaller Boer weapons began to fire; columns of dust spurted suddenly up beside the British batteries, telling that the enemy shot true; Maxim shells and shrapnel bullets lashed the surface of the veldt around them. But the gunners fired stolidly and steadily, and, as on many other occasions, the Boer projectiles caused trivial loss. The British howitzers now opened, hurling into the clouds from their squat throats the 50-lb. lyddite shells, which, when they fell, burst with a fearful concussion, tearing men in pieces. A correspondent with the Boers notes that in one case the upper and lower parts of one body were found no less than 100 feet apart. For some hours the shells fell on Brakfontein at the rate of ten a minute, but, wonderful to relate, the Boer casualties were by no means large. To direct the British fire the war balloon was sent up and information as to the enemy's whereabouts was transmitted from the observer in the car by telephone. This, by the way, was the second balloon to be employed by General Buller's army; the first had been damaged by Boer shrapnel, and eventually torn against rocks and rendered useless during the Spion Kop week.