The firm resolve manifested by the British Government and people after the repulse at Colenso, and the enlargement at once given to the scale of the war and to the contemplated reinforcements, showed that, unless {p.236} the garrison was speedily reduced, it would probably be relieved by sheer weight of numbers. In short, the opportunity for a decisive blow possibly now existed, but, if not quickly improved, would certainly pass away for ever. The motive for the assault that soon followed is not positively known; but, if the Boer information of the damage done by their shells, and of the food and ammunition supply in the town, was as accurate as it is believed to have been, they knew that neither bombardment nor hunger could reduce the place before the dreaded power of the outside enemy received full development. Ladysmith was to them like a dead weight round the neck of a swimmer struggling for life under other disadvantages. It is unnecessary to seek any further reason for the assault of January 6, by whomsoever first commanded. The words attributed to Joubert's order, "Ladysmith must be taken before Wednesday"--the faint echo, perhaps, of Wellington's "Ciudad Rodrigo _must_ be stormed this evening"--needed only to be supplemented by the words, "or never," to express a military argument to which no valid reply could {p.237} be made. As the commander of the New Orleans forts said, "There will be no to-morrow unless so and so is done _at once_." Reluctant, therefore, though the Boers as a race have shown themselves to offensive tactics and to assault, the necessities of the case compelled them. In their plan, and in its execution, they showed all the courage, all the tenacity, heretofore displayed in their defensive operations, as well as the peculiar, stealthy rockcraft of a nation of hunters, which has equally characterised them. It is not, however, too much to add that at the supreme moment, when man stands foot to foot and eye to eye, and when the issue depends upon superior aggressive momentum of temperament, the national trait, whether original or acquired, asserted itself; and the heroes who had scaled the heights barefoot, and clung with undying resolution to their rocky cover, exchanging shots almost muzzle to muzzle, did not muster the resolution which might, or might not--the true soldier recks not which at such an hour--have carried them, more than decimated, but triumphant, across the belt of withering fire to victory. The reply {p.238} of the British colonel on the other side of the sixty yards of plateau that separated the opponents, "We will try"--a phrase which Americans will remember fell in the same tongue from the lips of our own Colonel Miller at Lundy's Lane--expressed just the difference. Of the three companies who then rose to their feet on Wagon Hill and rushed, every officer fell and fifty-five of the men; but the bayonets of the survivors reached the other side, and there followed the inevitable result.