On reaching the entrance of Mome gorge, the advanced guard of the main body, consisting of a troop of C squadron, had already moved across the comparatively level ground opposite the mouth, when Barker and those with him, glancing over their right shoulders, observed a number of fires burning brightly in the gorge, some 1,000 yards away. There were about sixty. It seemed as if the troops had come too late. Word to halt was immediately passed along. The guns at the moment were half a mile in rear. On looking intently, it seemed as if figures were moving in front of the fires. The time then was about 4 a.m. Barker dismounted, and, taking two or three men with him, advanced on foot along the slope of the small ridge on the west of the mouth of the gorge to obtain a nearer view. Having satisfied himself the enemy was actually bivouacked on an old mealie garden, and in considerable force, exactly where the fires were, he proceeded to make his dispositions for attack, which, it was arranged, should begin as soon as daylight came. B and D squadrons and a Maxim gun were posted on a ridge to the immediate east of the Mome stream, where a good field of fire could be commanded. C squadron and fifty N.P. with a Colt gun, occupied the eastern face of a low ridge on the west, whilst the rest of the Police, except the troop that formed an escort to the guns posted on a prominent and detached hillock (in front of the mouth of the gorge), were kept in reserve out of sight and close to where the road passes between the gun position and the said low ridge on the west. The object of the latter force was to prevent a possible breaking back of the enemy into Insuze valley. The guns, crossing at the drift, purposely made a big detour to the left, skirted the left bank of the Insuze, and came up the southern face of the hillock referred to.[234] As it was, it was feared the noise was enough to alarm the enemy. When Fairlie arrived at his position, finding the enemy bivouacked immediately below him, he detached about twenty Nongqai and 400 of the Native levy, with two or three Europeans, to hold ground north of him, and opposite and within 100 yards of where the Dobo bush meets the Mome. The orders were that not a shot was to be fired nor the slightest noise made until daybreak, when a round from the 15-pounders was to be taken as the signal for a general fusillade. Barker made it known that he himself was with the guns.