At 5 a.m. the British troops stood to arms as usual. It was a wet and misty morning. As the men, few of whom knew of the occurrences of the night, waited in quarter-column, to a few keen ears came the fitful sound of musketry from the east. It was the fire of Grimshaw's piquet just then at bay below Talana. The parade having been dismissed, at 5.20 a message from Headquarters assured commanding officers that all was clear. A few companies moved directly from their lines for skirmishing drill around the camp, the men of others hung about in groups expecting the word to fall in for a similar purpose; the horses of two of the three batteries, and all the transport animals, filed out to water a mile and a half away. Suddenly at 5.30 a.m., the mist upon Talana, wasting before the rising sun, lifted and revealed the summit alive with figures. [Sidenote: The Boers make their presence known.] Ten minutes later the report of a gun sounded from the top, and a projectile fell into the western enclosures of the town. Others, better aimed, followed in quick succession; the camp came under a rapid bombardment, accurate but harmless, for the small common shell from the enemy's field-pieces failed to explode on impact with the sodden ground. The cavalry and the mounted infantry, whose horses had remained in camp, moved out of sight behind a stony kopje in front of it; the infantry, already equipped, fell rapidly into their places, each company before its own line of tents, and were immediately marched at the "double" into the shelter of a ravine some 200 yards to the south of the camp, where fighting formations were organised. [Sidenote: Symons prepares to clear Talana.] The General had already decided upon an assault. Before the infantry were clear of camp he called out the artillery. Whilst the 67th battery, whose horses were now hurrying back from water, replied to the Boer shells from the gun-park itself, the 69th battery, already horsed, waiting neither for its wagons nor an escort, galloped out along the road to the railway station, swept through the town, and swinging sharply to the right at the south-eastern extremity, came into action on a roll of the veld immediately west of the colliery extension railway line. As it advanced the Boers turned their guns upon it, but within twenty minutes of the falling of the first shell in camp, the 69th commenced a rapid and effective fire at 3,750 yards upon the crest. Ten minutes later the 13th battery wheeled into line alongside the 69th. In five minutes more the practice of the Boer ordnance dropped to spasmodic bursts; in five more it was temporarily silenced. Meanwhile the General, who had ridden out soon after the batteries, had set his infantry in motion, and so fast did they go forward that before the 69th had ended its first round they were already almost beyond Dundee. [Sidenote: He guards against Erasmus and gives orders for attack.]