On the right, however, fresh Boer weapons were each minute coming into line, and the artillery preponderance hitherto on our side was threatening to pass from us. The enemy's automatic 1-pounder guns were particularly annoying, directing their stream of small but deadly shells upon our guns and our infantry. Yet so splendidly was the British artillery handled that once more it got the better of the foe, checked the counter-attack on the right, and was paving the way for an infantry assault upon the Boer position at Farquhar's Farm when suddenly the most disquieting news arrived from Ladysmith. [Sidenote: White withdraws to save the town.] This was an urgent message from Colonel Knox, in command of the town, to Sir George White, stating that the enemy appeared to be on the verge of making a determined attack on Ladysmith and the British camp from the north. Without doubt the Boers advancing in this quarter were the commandoes which should have been held back by Carleton's unlucky column. General White could do nothing but retreat; there was only a mere handful of men in Ladysmith. But to withdraw his forces from a pitched battle, in the presence of a vastly superior enemy, was no easy task. [Illustration: _John Charlton._] BRINGING OFF THE GUNS.] [Sidenote: OCT. 30, 1899.] _Heroism of the Field Artillery._] The battlefield at this moment was a strange spectacle. Though hill and plain spurted continuous flame, a man standing midway between the two armies could have discerned little. It was not the battle of the past with masses of men theatrically manœuvring amidst clouds of smoke, but the battle of to-day--of the future--a weird, empty-looking smokeless field, where only the fearful din of hidden guns and rifles, of Maxims, Nordenfelts and Hotchkisses, of bursting shell and shrapnel, told of the presence of two combatant peoples. The troops, even the guns, were, as far as could be, behind cover, whence it followed that the effects of the artillery fight, though nerve-shaking enough, were incommensurate on either side with all the tremendous sound and fury. The air was thick with splinters, shells, shrapnel, and bullets, yet this mighty storm burst for the most part ineffectually on the veldt. [Illustration: NAVAL 45-POUNDER (4·7) GUN. This is one of the guns of H.M.S. Doris, mounted on Captain Scott's improvised carriage, and brought from the Cape to Durban by H.M.S. _Powerful_. The photograph was taken while the gun was on its way to the front.] [Illustration: [_From a Photograph taken at Simonstown._ H.M.S. "POWERFUL." Brought half a battalion from Mauritius, on Captain Lambton's own initiative, when proceeding from China to the Cape; and furnished the contingent which arrived so opportunely at Ladysmith during the battle.] [Sidenote: The guns brought off.]