The night passed. As the grey dawn broke over the veldt, a flash weirdly orange and a golden puff of smoke showed that the preconcerted plan had begun to be put in operation. Major Panzera with his seven-pounders had started the programme. Presently the Maxim rapped out in chorus, while on the right the great dusty crocodile, the armoured train, slunk along to its destination. Its whistle shrieked. It was Captain Vernon's signal for action. On the instant a thin line of moving kharki broke from cover, bayonets glittered among the scrub, cheers and the rattle of musketry filled the air. Officers and men were dashing, as only Britons can dash, each striving to outrush the other towards the lair of the enemy. Quick as thought they had plunged into the scrub that girdled the sandbags, and excitedly, jubilantly, some one on Dummie Fort sang out, "They are swarming over the bags--the position is ours!" All waited anxiously, almost breathlessly. The moments grew and grew, seconds became years. The sputtering of rifles continued, and swelled into a vast hum, and then some one--the same some one, only in a very different voice from that which spoke last, said hoarsely, "Our men are coming back!"... Yes. They were indeed coming back--the remnant--firing sullenly their parting shots ere they receded. The enemy's position had been proved impregnable! Their parapet was loopholed in triple tiers and roofed with a bomb-proof protection. It had but a single opening, large enough to admit one man at a time. It was in firing his revolver into one of the loopholes and endeavouring to pull out a sandbag with his left hand that Lieutenant Paton was killed. Captain FitzClarence, far ahead of his men, was shot in the thigh within 150 yards of the fort, and both Captains Sandford and Vernon were laid low almost within a stone's throw of the rifles of the enemy. Lieutenant Swinburne, who, directly Captain FitzClarence was wounded, led his men forward with dauntless energy, escaped unhurt. But few were equally lucky. Out of a storming party of eighty, twenty-one were killed and thirty-three wounded. It was when he saw this useless sacrifice of life that Major Godley sent a message to headquarters by the aide-de-camp. "Captain Vernon, sir, has been repulsed," he said, "and Major Godley does not think it worth while trying again." Nor was it. All that could be done was to send the ambulance to perform its grim duty.