"That evening at five o'clock, our commanding officer got a message that the General wanted to see him. Going off, he found Generals Ian Hamilton and Smith-Dorrien in close consultation, and looking at a mountain at the exit of a gorge, through which the column had to pass next day. (After passing through it, General Hamilton told me that it was just like the Khyber, but shorter.) Our commandant was told that the General wanted this mountain seized that night. It is called Zwaggershoch, and was about five miles from our bivouac. Its possession would give us complete control of that side of the pass, and we should be behind the right of the Boer position, where they were holding Buller at Klipspruit. He had selected us to undertake this task. With 500 men and half-a-dozen mounted men we started off at 8 P.M. by moonlight. The men were splendid--not a sound. We sounded up three farms on the way, lest they concealed Boers, and we had no idea of being cut off. We reached the foot of the hill all right. The companies then advanced at attack formation, so as to envelop the top of the hill. Then commenced a most awful climb. What Boers there were there I cannot tell you. It was very misty. We 'put up' seven, and they bolted. It is impossible to say what they had behind them. We reached the summit at 12.30 A.M., drenched through and through with perspiration. We set to and made sangars, and then lay down in biting cold at about 2 A.M., one blanket apiece. In spite of the cold I should have slept had it not been for a man alongside me who snored vigorously all night. We were lying on flat rocks--none too soft. Our commanding officer was up before dawn looking out for our friends, the Boers, opposing Buller, for we were now in rear of their right, and if they had waited till daylight we should have gone for them; but our friends the seven must have warned them, for they had retired during the night. "Thus he relieved Sir Redvers from what he told Ian Hamilton was the most difficult position he had found himself in since the beginning of the campaign. Besides that, we effectually stopped all sniping from our side of the pass, whilst the column marched through, though there was plenty on the other side, out of range from us. We climbed precipitous hilltops all that day as we pushed men on and on, so as to get command up to the very exit. I was a bit done when I got into bivouac. I hadn't really had a meal since 6 P.M. the day before, and had been hard at work night and day. We were off again on the 6th--Buller level with us now on the other road--and we marched into Lydenburg."