officer, who was brought into the laager after the fight, told me that the men who carried him off the field were the first Boers he had seen. During the fight he had not caught a glimpse of a single man." Some idea of the nature of the artillery fire concentrated upon this point may be gathered from the fact that this correspondent picked up a double handful of shrapnel bullets in a space only 50 feet square. [Illustration: [_Photo by Middlebrook._ ONE OF THE NAVAL GUNS ON ZWART KOP BOMBARDING VAAL KRANTZ. The puff of smoke on the distant hill shows where a Boer magazine was exploded--it is believed, by a British shell.] [Illustration: [_Photo by Capt. Foot._ A LULL IN THE BATTLE. This photograph was taken under fire during the battle of Vaal Krantz, and shows the Brakfontein position in the distance. The men in the foreground are awaiting the order to advance.] [Sidenote: Infantry storm the height.] [Sidenote: FEB. 5, 1900.] _Capture of the Ridge._] From Zwart Kop the Vaal Krantz ridge was seen to be veiled in the dust and smoke thrown up by the bursting shells, and it was thought--and with good reason, as afterwards appeared, notwithstanding the Boer correspondent's tale of unflinching burghers--that the greater part of the enemy's force had retired from the hill. The artillery preparations had been completed as never before; the time had come for the infantry to storm the position. The 1st Durham Light Infantry on the left, and the 3rd King's Royal Rifles on the right accordingly extended and pushed forward under a sharp, enfilading rifle fire from the dongas below Doorn Kloof, and under a hail of bullets from the Boer guns' shrapnel. Unshaken, they pressed steadily on, availing themselves of every inch of cover--now vanishing from view as they sank down behind the ant heaps, now rising and rushing forward in a wavy line. They reached the foot of the smoking ridge, breasted it, and with a cheer gained the Boer trenches, from which the enemy fled precipitately, leaving only half-a-dozen armed Kaffirs to fight to the last. The Kaffirs were shot down, though not until one of them, who was wounded and who had been spared, had put a bullet through a British officer's wrist. Their presence showed that the Boers were ready without scruple to arm and employ black men against whites. As the storming of Vaal Krantz began there was an exciting episode, a Boer "Pom-Pom" galloping from Vaal Krantz towards the Doorn Kloof dongas across open ground. The British artillery aimed at it shell after shell, but, so hard is a fast-moving object to hit at uncertain ranges, that the gun and its team escaped injury and went to earth in a donga, amidst a cloud of smoke from bursting shells. [Illustration: [_Photo by Lieut. Salmond._ THE 1ST DURHAM LIGHT INFANTRY ADVANCING ON VAAL KRANTZ.