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Before the commando started, a terrible thunderstorm came on that slowly passed over and was followed by a gentle rain. We rode hard in the dark, through dongas, past farms and houses, zigzagging in a half-circle, to the mountains of Dundee. No sound was to be heard except the dull thud of the hoofs of the galloping horses.
Putting aside the question of responsibility, what happened on the morning of Sunday, February 18th, was that from every quarter an assault was urged across the level plains, to the north and to the south, upon the lines of desperate and invisible men who lay in the dongas and behind the banks of the river.
It averaged about one hundred and twenty yards in width, was very flat, and on its landward side was bounded by a bank of red earth ranging from ten to about fifty feet in height, cut into here and there by "dongas", through one of which they had descended from the plain to the level of the sand.
Most of the requisites of a lion were here present abundant game, water, the cover of the low brush in the dongas. Only lacked a few rocky kopje fastnesses to make it ideal; but that lack could be, and was, overlooked.
We were obliged to ride back by the same path we had come by, which was fortunate for us, as we knew the way and could ride through crevices and dongas without any hesitation. In this way we soon gave our pursuers the slip.
It was then past ten o'clock; the crescent moon was "sloping slowly towards the west" behind a bank of dark clouds, and in another hour the faint light would have gone, giving place to a gloom that makes rocks, trees, rough knolls, and deep dongas one shapeless black. General Hunter's instructions were brief and simple, silence being the point most strongly insisted on.
On Monday morning it seemed as if the very blades of grass for miles around the Boer laager were belching shot and shell over the dongas and trenches where the burghers had sought shelter.
Burghers, horses and cattle fell under the storm of lead and iron, and the mingled life-blood of man and beast flowed in rivulets to join the waters of the river. The wounded lay groaning in the trenches; the dead unburied outside, and the cannonading was so terrific that no one was able to leave the trenches and dongas sufficiently long to give a drink of water to a wounded companion.
The frontal attack was initiated by Kelly-Kenny with the 13th Brigade under C. Knox, the 18th Brigade having been detached to support Hannay's flank attack. The main body of the Boers was north of the river, but strong detachments held the left-bank dongas.
The dongas ran into each other with numerous bends and curves, and were sometimes overgrown with high grass, then again quite bare. I paid no attention to the direction we took. After a while one of the men wounded a buck, and they both rode into the donga after it.
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