At noon a message arrived from Sir Redvers Buller ordering Sir Charles Warren to place Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft in command on the summit. Sir Redvers Buller says he telegraphed to Sir Charles Warren: ‘Unless you put some really good hard-fighting man in command on the top you will lose the hill. I suggest Thorneycroft.’ Sir Charles Warren, though so much nearer the scene of operations than Sir Redvers Buller, was in a much inferior position for seeing what was going on at the top of Spion Kop, and, astonished though he may have been at the selection of this gallant young officer to supersede the colonels commanding brigades and regiments, he regarded the intimation as an order--in fact, he says in his despatch it was an order--and he at once signalled to Colonel Crofton: ‘With approval of the Commander-in-Chief I place Lieutenant-Colonel Thorneycroft in command of the summit with the local rank of Brigadier-General.’ The confusion consequent upon this order will be considered further on. * * * * * At the same time Major-General Lyttelton, who had been bombarding all the morning with his artillery at Potgieter’s, apprised by Sir Charles Warren of Colonel Crofton’s telegram and asked to give assistance on his side of Spion Kop, demonstrated strongly by sending two squadrons of Bethune’s Horse and the Scottish Rifles to reinforce the extreme right on the top of the hill, while later the King’s Royal Rifles crossed the river and moved against a high point of Spion Kop. These troops did very good work, and in the afternoon Sir Charles Warren wired to Major-General Lyttelton: ‘The assistance you are giving most valuable. We shall try to remain _in statu quo_ during to-morrow. Balloon would be of incalculable value.’ In the meantime all available sandbags and tools for intrenching were sent by the hands of the troops going up, each man carrying something. Two hundred gallons of water were well on their way, some springs near the top were developed by the Engineers, the zigzag pathway was completed, and coils of 3-inch cable got ready for hauling up the naval guns. Then followed an anxious time for Sir Charles Warren. The rifle and shell fire of the Boers was extremely hot on the top, the signallers had been hit and some of their apparatus destroyed, and for some two or three hours he was unable to get any replies to repeated inquiries. There was no news of the mountain guns or the naval 12-pr. guns, which Sir Redvers Buller was to send across the river to him--in fact, the former only left Springfield at eleven o’clock that morning.