Buller sent him Talbot Coke's brigade with some howitzers; and came over to consult with him on January 22. The situation was not satisfactory. Time was being wasted, Warren's "special arrangements" had done little, and now he had a new idea. Buller still advocated an attack on the enemy's right, while Warren wished to persevere with his advance by the Fairview Road; but he pointed out that Spion Kop, which his reading of the "secret instructions" had led him to regard as out of bounds, must first be taken. No definite action seems to have been decided on, and Warren was left to act within certain limits on his own responsibility. Finally, with the approval of the four infantry generals, he resolved to seize Spion Kop that night. The attack, however, was postponed until the following night, to give time for the position to be reconnoitred. Spion Kop is a ridge of which the chief features are a pair of high peaks joined by a nek to a plateau, from which a spur, ending in a kopje called Conical Hill, juts out at right angles to the nek, which becomes a spur of the plateau at a Little Knoll east of the summit. Its tactical importance was derived from its height, as the summit, though not the peaks, is higher than any of the ground held by the enemy; and from its position, as it was on the obtuse angle formed by the meeting of Botha's line on the Boer right with Schalk Burger's on the centre, and enfiladed each of them. It was accessible from the British front by a slope which rises from the lower ground to another spur running S.W. from the plateau. On the morning of January 23, Buller saw Warren, and again pressed him to make an attack on the Boer right; but finding that the orders for the assault on Spion Kop had already been issued, he refrained from vetoing it. He threatened, however, that if immediate action in some direction were not taken, Warren's force would be withdrawn to the south of the Tugela. On the previous day Warren, betraying the Engineer officer unused to handling large bodies of men, and unfamiliar with the military unities, rearranged his command with a straight edge, and distributed it in one way for tactical, and in another for administrative purposes. All the troops lying west of an imaginary line became the left attack under Clery, while those east of it became the right attack. The latter, under Talbot Coke, were ordered to seize the Spion Kop position by night, and entrench it before daybreak, the actual assault being made by Woodgate with two battalions, some mounted infantry on foot, and a few Engineers. At sunset on January 23, the curtain fell upon the first act of the Tragedy of Spion Kop.