'I would suggest sending him a message that will stiffen him, sir.
'Yes, I agree.' Buller turned to the signaller and began to dictate.
'The mountain must be held at all costs. No withdrawal. I repeat no
withdrawal. Reinforce with Middlesex and Dorset regiments.'
Then he hesitated and looked around his staff. 'What do you know of
this fellow Crofton? Is he the right man to command on the peak?'
There were non-committal sounds of negation from them until A'Court,
Buller's ADC, spoke up.
'Sir. There is one excellent man up there-Acheson-Colonel John
Acheson. You remember his showing at Colenso? ' Buller nodded
thoughtfully and turning back to the signaller he went on with his
dictation. 'You must put some really good hard fighting man in command
on the peak. Suggest you promote Acheson to Major-General.
In front of the trench the grass was flattened by the repeated
counter-attacks that had swept across it, stained by the blood of those
who had dragged themselves back from the Boer positions along the
crest, and littered with the twisted corpses of those who had not.
Every few seconds a shell exploded along the British line, so there was
a continual moving forest of bursts and the shrapnel hissed like the
flails of threshing giants.
John Acheson forced himself to his feet and climbed on to the parapet
and shouted,
'Come on, lads. This time they'll not stop us!'
In the trench below him the dead and the wounded lay upon each other
two and three deep, all of them coated with a layer of red dust. The
same red dust coated the faces that looked up at him as he shouted
again.
'Bugler, sound the charge. Come, lads, forward. Take the bayonet to
them. ' The bugle started to sing, brassy and urgent. Acheson hopped
like a gaunt, old stork from the parapet and flapped his sword.
Behind him he heard laughter from a dozen throats, not the laughter of
ordinary men, but the chilling discord of insanity.
'Follow me, Follow me!' His voice rose to a shriek and they scrambled
from the trench behind him. Dusty spectres with bloodshot eyes,
smeared with dust and their own sweat. Their laughter and their curses
blended with the babbling of the wounded, outstripped it and climbed
into a chorus of wild cheers. Without form, spreading like spilled
oil, the charge flowed out towards the crest. Four hundred men,
staggering through the dust-storm of shell-fire and the tempest of the
Mausers.
Acheson stumbled over a corpse and fell. His ankle twisted with a
shock of pain that jolted his dulled senses. He recovered his sword,
dragged himself up and limped grimly on towards the rampart of boulders
that marked the crest. But this time they did not reach it to be
thrown back as they had before. This time the charge withered before
it had covered half the distance. In vain Acheson waved them forward,
yelling until his voice was a hoarse croak. They slowed and wavered,
then at last they broke and streamed back down the open bullet-swept
slope to the trench. lbars of frustrated anger streaking his dusty
