For another minute Acheson watched the hills, then he lowered his
glasses and pulled his watch from his breast pocket. Four o'clock,
three hours more of daylight.
'Yes!' he said. 'Send them in.'
And Peterson scribbled the order and handed it to Acheson for his
signature.
'Hier Kom Hulle. ' Lennox heard the shout in the ceaseless.
roar of the shells, heard it taken up and passed along the line.
'Here they come.'
'Pasop! They are coming He stood up and his stomach heaved at the
movement. Poisoned by the lyddite fumes, he fought his nausea and when
he had controlled it he looked out along the river. For a second the
veil of dust opened so he could see the tiny lines of khald moving in
towards the hills. Yes, they were coming.
He ran down his own line towards the river, shouting as he went.
'Wait until they are certain! Don't shoot until they reach the
markers! ' From this corner of the kopje he could look out over every
quarter of the field.
'Ja, I thought so! ' he muttered. 'They come from two sides to split
us. ' Advancing on the frontage of the river were those same lines of
tiny figures. The lines bulged and straightened and bulged again, but
always they crept slowly nearer. Already the leading rank was moving
up on his thousand, yard markers, in another five minutes they would be
in range.
'They stand out well,' Leroux muttered as he ran his eyes along the row
of markers. While most of his men were building the earthworks along
the kopjes and the river, others had paced out the ranges in front of
these de fences Every two hundred and fifty yards they had erected
those small cairns of stones, and over each they had smeared whitish
grey mud from the river.
It was a trick the British never seemed to understand, and as they
advanced the Boer rifles had their range almost to the yard.
'The river is safe, ' he decided. 'They cannot break through there,'
and he allowed himself time to grin. 'They never learn.
Every time they come against the worst side. ' Then he switched his
attention to the assault on his left flank. This one was dangerous,
this was where he must command in person, and he ran back to his
original position while around him and overhead the storm of shrapnel
and lyddite roared on unabated.
He dropped on his belly between two of his burghers, wriggled forward
unbuckling the bandolier from around his chest and draped it over the
boulder beside him.
'Good luck, Oom Paul,' a burgher called.
'And to you, Hendrik, ' he answered as he set the rear sight of his
Mauser at a thousand yards, then laid the rifle on the rock in front of
him.
'Close now,' the burgher beside him muttered.
'Very close. Good luck and shoot straight!'
Suddenly the storm lifted and there was silence. A vast aching
silence, more shocking than the buzzing, howling roar of the guns. The
