In This Infernal Fire, Which
Left The Rocks Yellow With Lyddite, The Survivors Still Waited
Grimly For The Advance Of The Infantry.
No finer defence was made
in the war.
The attack was carried out across an open glacis by the
2nd Rifle Brigade and by the Inniskilling Fusiliers, the men of
Pieter's Hill. Through a deadly fire the gallant infantry swept
over the position, though Metcalfe, the brave colonel of the
Rifles, with eight other officers, and seventy men were killed or
wounded. Lysley, Steward, and Campbell were all killed in leading
their companies, but they could not have met their deaths upon an
occasion more honourable to their battalion. Great credit must also
be given to A and B companies of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, who
were actually the first over the Boer position. The cessation of
the artillery fire was admirably timed. It was sustained up to the
last possible instant. 'As it was,' said the captain of the leading
company, 'a 94-pound shell burst about thirty yards in front of the
right of our lot. The smell of the lyddite was awful.' A pom-pom
and twenty prisoners, including the commander of the police, were
the trophies of the day. An outwork of the Boer position had been
carried, and the rumour of defeat and disaster had already spread
through their ranks. Braver men than the burghers have never lived,
but they had reached the limits of human endurance, and a long
experience of defeat in the field had weakened their nerve and
lessened their morale.
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