Baden-Powell's plans for the taking of this fort were perfectly understood by his officers. The little force entrusted with the work of carrying Game Tree moved out of the town in the dusk of early morning, and in a few minutes the roar of artillery announced the beginning of a desperate fight. The scream of the engine of the armoured train told the men at the guns to cease firing, meaning that Captain Vernon was ready to rush the position with the bayonet. The scene that followed was magnificent. Waving their hats and cheering like schoolboys after a football match, our men started to run through the scrub towards the silent fort. And then as they went, a pitiless fire suddenly poured in upon them, a hail of bullets tore up the ground at their feet, swept down their gallant ranks, like grass before the scythe, and the men realised amid that enclosing and remorseless fire that treachery had forewarned the Boers, that Game Tree was impregnable. But did they waver or turn back? Not them. They were many yards from the fort, and their orders were to storm it. On they rushed, the officers well in front, waving their swords in the air and shouting cheerfully to their men to follow. Three officers, Vernon, Sandford, and Paton, seem to have made a race of it. Through that terrible zone of fire these young Englishmen rushed forward with all the zeal of men striving to be first to touch the tape. Captain Vernon fell ten yards from the thundering fort, and Sandford and Paton were left to fight out that splendid race alone. With a shout from his parched lips, Paton leaped upon the redoubt, caught with his strong hand the corner of a sandbag, jerked it out of position, thrust his revolver through the loophole, and, panting like a man spent, fired into the enemy's midst till he fell, shot through his gallant heart. Sandford, too, had run a great race, and had almost tied with Paton on the post. He flung himself upon the piled wall that could only be broken by heavy artillery, and fell shot through, with his breast almost against the muzzles of the enemy's guns. Nor were the non-commissioned officers and men far behind their valiant leaders; one intrepid sergeant, who was twice wounded, and at some distance from the redoubt, continued the race across the bullet-swept scrub and reached the sandbags almost on the heels of Paton. The men went forward shouting and cheering, unafraid to look death in the face, afraid only to turn back with their faces from the sandbags where the smoke drifted, and from whence the hail of bullets rained. There was no coward among their ranks, and even when the gallant souls realised that the position was impregnable, there was not a single man among them who wavered, or dropped back in the race. From the moment when the order to charge had been given, the attack was an eagerly contested race, with Death sitting on the flaming fort with the crown of glory for their prize.