So hot was the fire, so keen the enemy's watch upon the surface of the plain that the slightest movement attracted a rain of bullets. An officer put up his hand; in a moment a storm of projectiles whistled over him. He did not repeat the experiment. "If one asked a comrade for a drink of water," says Mr. Ralph, the correspondent of the _Daily Mail_, "he saw the bottle or the hand that was passing it pierced by a Dum-dum or with a 1-pounder Nordenfelt shell. Or if he raised his head to writhe in his pain he felt his helmet shot away. From the rear ammunition carriers and stretcher bearers walked boldly forward until, the moment they were within range, a sheet, a torrent of bullets and small shells raked the air as jets of water spurt from a flower-sprinkler. But that image is too faint, for the jets were all whistling or shrieking, throwing up fountains of red sand, exploding in hundreds of detonations like echoes of the guns that spewed them. At this, down upon their bellies dropped the stretcher bearers and the cartridge carriers, and there they lay for hours, never rising or attempting to rise without loosening this torrent anew." The Maxim shells rushing through the air "like so many jets of steam released from the highest pressure, and singing like little steam whistles," had great moral effect. One, landing between an unhappy soldier's legs, shattered both his thighs. Yet, speaking generally, the moral effect was greater far than the material. Among the other torments which were patiently endured, not the least were the ants which sallied forth in thousands and bit and stung the soldiers, when the many ant hills dotted over the plain were broken up by the enemy's artillery. [Illustration: _Stereo-photo by Underwood & Underwood. Copyright 1900._ SOME OF CRONJE'S OFFICERS. The Commandants who fought under Cronje at Modder River, Magersfontein, and Paardeberg; from a photograph taken after their capture by Lord Roberts.] [Illustration: _J. H. Thornely._] THE BATTLE OF MODDER RIVER: THE 62ND BATTERY UNLIMBERING UNDER A WITHERING FIRE FROM AN INVISIBLE ENEMY AT 800-YARDS RANGE.] [Sidenote: Sleep during battle.] [Sidenote: [NOV. 28, 1899.] [Sidenote: Arrival of an additional field-battery.]