A number of sailors were unloading shells for their guns, and a
crowd of Kaffirs, under the orders of military officers, were getting
out the stores. As they alighted, after hearty thanks to the officer
whose kindness had been the means of their getting forward so promptly,
and who now went to report his arrival to Captain Jones, who was
superintending the operations of the sailors, Chris and his party
hurried to the rear waggon. It was a work of considerable difficulty to
get the horses out, and could not have been accomplished had there not
been a stack of sleepers near the spot. A number of these were carried
and piled so as to make a sloping gangway, by which the horses were
brought down. The sleepers being returned to their places, Chris and his
friends mounted and rode to the camp, which was placed behind a long,
low ridge which screened it from the sight of the enemy on the opposite
hills, although within easy range of their heavy guns.
Here before daybreak on the 12th, Major-general Barton's Fusilier
brigade, with a thousand Colonial Cavalry, three field batteries, and
the naval guns, had marched north, and were the following night joined
by another brigade with some cavalry. The next day the big naval guns
had opened fire; but although their shell had reached the lower
entrenchments of the Boers, their batteries on the hill had proved to be
beyond their range even with the greatest elevation that could be given
to them, while the Boer guns carried far beyond the camp.
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