The loss of the guns is the chief fact in the story of Colenso. What were Buller's intentions with regard to the Naval battery and the two Field batteries which he sent to "a point from which they could prepare the crossing for Hildyard's Brigade," and how did Long understand and carry out his orders. The battle orders had been orally anticipated by Buller, who before they were issued, explained his intentions personally to Long: and, as often happens in conferences, the impression retained by one conferent differed from that intended to be conveyed by the other. Long believed that he was instructed to shell the Kopjes and entrenched positions behind Fort Wyllie, which he did not at first know was held by the enemy, and he opened at a range of a mile; and Buller's statement that he was ordered to open fire with the long-range naval guns only, the position not being within reach of the field batteries, is contradicted; while Buller complained that Long had taken up a position within 1,200 yards of a fortified hill and less than a quarter of a mile from cover occupied by the enemy. There is, indeed, a small area of low trees and scrub near the right bank of the Tugela a few hundred yards on the right front of the line of guns, but there is no evidence that the Boers had ever crossed the river to hold it. When the field guns, after firing nearly 100 rounds each, became silent, Buller, who was already perturbed by Hart's discomfiture, jumped to the conclusion that they were exterminated, and that it would be useless to proceed with the attack without them; but the gunners were only waiting for more ammunition. Not until the following day did he know that men enough to fight the guns were still untouched. If the whole of his force had been seriously engaged he would perhaps have been justified in his decision not to hold on to Colenso with exhausted and parched troops in the burning heat of the South African midsummer in the hope of rescuing the guns at night; but several battalions had been doing little more than watching the fight during the morning, and he might have left them on the field; and it is clear from a telegram sent by Botha early in the afternoon that if the Naval battery had remained with an effective infantry support no attempt would have been made by the Boers to cross the river, and that the guns would not have been lost.