"He had 'spooked' indeed!" thought Commandant de Villiers.
The attack from Venterspruit lasted for four days. It was fearful to witness what havoc our guns wrought amongst the English—especially the Maxim-Nordenfeldt.
But the British allowed nothing to baffle them. They were repeatedly driven back, and one constantly saw them carrying off their dead, and constantly they reappeared with new reinforcements. They built small entrenchments of stone and lay firing from behind them, and the shells exploded and our Mauser bullets rained upon these small fortifications. But there was no sign of retreat. The number of our dead and wounded had already reached nearly a hundred. We began to tremble as to how matters might turn out. How long would it last, we asked when the fourth day had passed and our burghers continued to suffer terribly under the bombardment.
How long, we asked ourselves, would our burghers be able to hold out?
At last the shades of the night of the 23rd of January closed in upon the horrible scene, and many anxiously questioned what the morrow would bring forth.
The night was dark and rainy, and this did not help to dispel the depression which prevailed; but the burghers were not discouraged; neither the four days' attack, nor the six days of shelling, nor the depression caused by the drizzling rain, could quench the quiet determination and courage of our men. They entered upon the night firmly resolved that, when the light of morning dawned, they would once more begin their schanzes and again face the fire of the guns, and beat back the ever-returning odds.
On the following day everything looked dark. The mountain was enveloped in a dense mist, and for a long time the men lay behind their schanzes waiting for what would happen when the vapours were dispelled.
After some time the weather cleared, and what was the surprise of all to see that there were English on the summit of Spion Kop! They had climbed the mountain under cover of the dark night. And there were some who said that all was over with us now. The battle was lost.
But the burghers who were in the vicinity of the Kop were not of this opinion. General Burger reported to General Botha how matters stood, and he himself gave orders to Commandant Prinsloo of the Carolina Commando to storm the Kop. This was carried out splendidly by Prinsloo and his Carolina burghers, at the cost of 55 killed and wounded out of the gallant 88. The burghers of Lydenburg and Heidelberg also took part in the onslaught. And when General Botha soon afterwards stormed the Kop from another direction, no one doubted but that the attack would succeed. In the meanwhile matters had gone hard with the English on Spion Kop. From the moment that our gunners had discovered them, they had bombarded them fiercely. The English perceived too, when it was too late, that they had not been able in the darkness to find the best shelter, and that they were now insufficiently protected from our shells. These caused such slaughter amongst them that when our storming-party reached the top, before ten o'clock, they met with very little opposition. The English were driven to the other side of the Kop, and the fight was carried on at very close quarters. Boer and Briton were often but fifty yards apart.
And now something happened about which we had heard complaints before, but of which I will now speak for the first and last time: the abuse of the white flag.