Unhappily no precautions appear to have been taken to ascertain either the strength of the enemy’s position or the best mode of attack. For some reason or another, probably owing to an under-estimation of Cronje’s position, the men were not even permitted to breakfast before the march began, and so on a beautiful morning they set out towards the undulating plain that lay upon the other side of the river. Cronje had laid his plans with the utmost care and assurance, placing his men on both sides of the river, entrenching them upon the sloping ground, and concealing his artillery. The question has been raised—and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle raised it again—Why the river should have been crossed at that particular point; also why the British forces should have been led over an open plain without any attempt at reconnaissance? Such problems as these, however, might be multiplied to little purpose throughout the earlier part of the South African campaign. Perhaps the briefest answer to them would be that it was just because of such incidents as these that the country was eventually to plead with its oldest soldier to take over the command. Now that we have tested the lessons that South Africa taught us, the humiliation has passed into thankfulness that they came in time. Cronje simply waited until the British were within range of his fire, and then very suddenly opened a tornado of bullet and shell fire at a range of seven hundred and fifty yards. One moment, and in front of them had lain an apparently peaceful landscape, a few houses and farms sleeping under the morning sun; the next, and the whole horizon was blazing with death. It was fatal to advance; the cavalry could do nothing, while the infantry were dependent upon the guns to gain the superiority. At this critical moment one of the most dramatic incidents in the war occurred. Out of the unknown, with staggering horses and guns caked with mud, lumbered up the 62nd Field Battery, which had covered thirty-two miles in less than twenty-four hours. It was a providential piece of good fortune. Throughout the long day the infantry lay under the broiling sun, just as the remnants of the Highland Brigade were to endure it not very long after. The artillery engagement wore on, the heat passed, and as night came the British were gaining the advantage. All day they had been without food. At last, in the late afternoon, the North Lancashires managed to get across the river and take up a position on the extreme left, where they were joined by the Coldstreams and the Argyll and Sutherlands. The action was turning against the Boers. With this desperate little force on their flank, and the artillery shattering their guns on the front, they took advantage of the night to evacuate their trenches and retreat. It had indeed been a costly action, and might have been a humiliating defeat. What perhaps it was more than anything else was a proof of British bravery under the most dismal conditions.