The transport was forwarded to Venter's Laager, an advance of four whole miles in the day, while the mildest kind of long-range fighting proceeded, and the troops wondered whether "make haste slowly"--"slowly" in this case being at the pace of the snail--was wise tactics. On the right of the British troops the Boers looked down from the hills--it might seem with ironical contempt--upon the half-hearted, purposeless moves of the great army below. They were active enough in ever extending their lines of defence to the north-east, whatever the British were doing. Yet, prudently guarding against possibilities, their heavy waggons were already on the road to the Free State and the Transvaal. Sir George White, they argued, might well break in upon their retreat if General Buller's army gained any success. In the afternoon the action slowly relaxed its vigour; the steady and continued rifle and cannon fire gave place to desultory sniping, and the troops bivouacked in their aerial perches among the rocky ridges. [Illustration: BRITISH SOLDIERS TENDING BOERS AFTER THE BATTLE AT POTGIETER'S DRIFT. (See page 268.)] [Sidenote: Change of plan.] [Sidenote: JAN. 19, 1900.] _Frontal Attack to be Made._] "In war," says the great Prussian organiser of victory, Scharnhorst, "what the general does matters little. Everything depends upon the unity of action and vigour with which he does it." And so it was no very reassuring symptom when, after reaching Venter's Laager, Sir Charles Warren assembled the generals, the staff, and the commanders of the artillery and engineers, and pointed out to them that there were two lines of advance--the one devious and round-about, by way of Acton Homes, the other passing up by Fair View and the centre of the Boer position to the western side of Spion Kop, at a point where the summit of the ridge dropped considerably. To move by Acton Homes, he urged, was impossible, as his food and provisions would not permit of it. To take waggons up the Fair View road would necessitate sending all the transport back to the south of the Tugela and capturing the enemy's positions by a frontal attack, the men marching with three or four days' provisions in their haversacks. The assembled generals acquiesced; and thus, in spite of a general order, which is said to have been issued by General Buller at the beginning of the flank movement, to the effect that there would be "no turning back from the relief of Ladysmith," the original flank movement was abandoned. A message was sent to General Buller couched in the following terms:-- "Sent 7·54 p.m. Received 8·15 p.m. "Left Flank, 19th January. "To the Chief of the Staff,