Both battalions were simultaneously entangled in the fight. No organised body of reserves was left to support the skirmishers or feed the advancing line with fresh men. The stormers, under a tremendous fire from an invisible enemy only eighty yards away, forced their way up the steep and stony slopes, encountering wire fences in which many were caught and delayed. "The Boers," wrote a bandsman of the Northumberland Fusiliers, "had put up fences with spikes in, and when we got halfway through we stuck fast. The Boers were laughing at us. My haversack stuck fast in the fence, and there I was struggling, with the bullets flying all round me. I managed to get the haversack off and left it in the fence. Our regiment was 1,100 strong, now we don't muster much over 500." They neared the top, advancing from boulder to boulder, when just below a stone wall held by the enemy they found before them a vertical precipice. It was only a few feet high--a few feet of sheer unclimbable rock--but such an obstacle will repel the efforts of the best mountaineer, much more those of weary and heavy-laden infantry under the very muzzles of the enemy's rifles. At the same time the Boer artillery opened fire with a heavy 40-pounder of long range and two quick-firing field pieces. Desperate attempts were made to scale the precipice, but ladders alone could have enabled the men to surmount it, and ladders were wanting. At this moment several shells from the rear burst amongst them. There was nothing for it but for the infantry to retire and hold the best position they could reach near at hand. [Illustration: THE RETREAT AFTER THE BATTLE OF STORMBERG.] [Sidenote: Fatigue of the British troops.] So exhausted were the men by their long march and by the climb, that when the retreat began many threw themselves down and instantly fell asleep under the enemy's fire. No efforts of their officers or comrades could keep them awake. Men fell in a heavy slumber as they staggered down the mountain side. Others had not the endurance left to march back through the bullet-swept zone behind them, and sank down on the kopjes waiting to be made prisoners, because they felt escape was beyond their strength. The remnant painfully picked their way down the slopes under the pitiless hail from the Mausers, and doubled back across the 500 yards of open veldt to the nearest cover. It was a terrible scene, and had the Boers shown the smallest energy or attempted a charge, General Gatacre's whole force must have been captured or destroyed. [Sidenote: [DEC. 10, 1899.] [Sidenote: A gun abandoned.]