"Our big Naval guns shelled the enemy's position off and on all day, but could get no response. We could see very few Boers about, and it was a horrid position to attack.... I don't believe any troops could have taken it. However, we tried yesterday and failed. We bombarded every place that looked like holding Boers for two hours, without response and without a sign of a Boer. To see the shells bursting, you would have thought nothing could have been left alive in the vicinity. After this, infantry, which had already got into position, advanced line after line and extended widely. Instantly thousands of bullets began pattering about, and their guns pitched shells all over the place. Where they came from no one could see till the end. Sir Redvers Buller rode all along the line, and came in for a good deal of attention from bullets and shells. "My first experience was my stick being knocked out of my hand by a bullet; then a horse beside me was killed by a shell. About 10 o'clock two batteries which had advanced far too close ran short of ammunition. Their waggons were about 800 yards behind, the horses and men sheltering in a deep narrow nullah. General Buller told them to take the waggons up to the battery, but instantly they emerged a stream of bullets and shells fell all round, and most of the men got into the nullah again. Generals Buller and Cleary stood out in it and said, 'Some of you go and help Schofield.' A.D.C. Roberts, myself, and two or three others went to the waggons, and we got two waggons horsed with the help of a corporal and six gunners. I have never seen even at field-firing the bullets fly thicker. All one could see were little tufts of dust all over the ground accompanied by a whistling noise, 'phut,' where they hit, and an increasing rattle of musketry somewhere in front. "My first bullet went through my left sleeve and just made the point of my elbow bleed. Next a clod of earth caught me a smack on the other arm; then my horse got one; then my right leg one, and my horse another. That settled us, for he plunged, and I fell about 100 yards short of the guns we were going to. A little nullah was by, and into that I hobbled and sat down. I had not been in a minute before another bullet hit the toe of my boot, went into the welt, travelled up, and came out at the toe-cap, two inches from the end of the toe. It did not even scratch me, but I shifted my quarters pretty quickly to a better place, where I found Colonels Hunt and Long, R.A., and a dozen or so wounded gunners; a doctor, Colonel Bullock, and about fifteen men of his regiment--all that were left of the escort and two batteries.