It was well for them that they had marched that day without their greatcoats, for these would have shown up clearly upon the light sand, whereas at a thousand yards the khaki-clad figures could scarcely be made out by the keenest-sighted Boer. The scream of the bullets overhead was unceasing; the dust was knocked up as if by a hail-storm driven by a mighty wind; and even above the rattle of the musketry and the roar of cannon, the quick thud of the machine-guns firing one-pound shells--afterwards called by the men pom-poms--added a new horror to warfare. The Scots Guards had suffered most from this outburst of fire, because they were nearest to the Riet, and therefore more exposed to the flanking fire of the Transvaalers there than were the battalions to their left. Their Maxim was almost immediately disabled by the pom-pom, and most of the men serving it killed. To remain in the position meant annihilation, and they fell back a few hundred yards to an old reservoir. The Grenadiers and the 2nd Coldstreams were fortunate in finding some little protection under a very slight rise in the ground. All through the day the Guardsmen lay prone in the positions in which they had first halted. To retreat under that ceaseless hail of fire would have been as dangerous as to advance. There was nothing to do but to lie still and suffer. The sun beat down upon them with withering heat. Most of them lay with their rifles under them, for the breaches and barrels were too hot to handle. They were parched by a terrible thirst, and many were wounded, but neither water nor stretcher could be carried to them through the hail of bullets. The streams of balls from the pom-poms tried them even more than the bullets. At times there was a slight lull in the firing, but the slightest movement caught the eyes of the watchful foe, and then it broke out again with renewed fury. It was clear from the first that nothing could be done on this side of the railway, and that the coming of darkness could alone bring relief. Happily, however, things were going better to the left of the railway. The two batteries of artillery had galloped across to that side, and pushing on with extreme bravery, had opened a heavy fire upon the village and the Boer entrenchments. They were exposed not only to a continuous musketry fire, but to a cannonade from the Boer guns on the heights, more numerous and of heavier metal than their own; but they maintained their ground, aided by the four 12-pounders of the naval men. At half-past eleven, however, one of the batteries had to fall back, having lost heavily, and having nearly exhausted its ammunition. Twenty-five horses were killed as they dragged the guns back, and the officers' chargers had to be harnessed in their places.