They advanced briskly, their Maxims clearing out the Boers, from whose
fire they suffered but little; but they sustained some loss from the
shell fire from Mount Alice, the sailors having been as uninformed of
the advance the brigade were to make as they were of the capture of
Spion Kop. The Scottish Rifles and the 3rd King's Royal Rifles pushed on
rapidly and gained the spur farthest north. Had there been guns on Spion
Kop the object of the movement would have been attained, and the advance
by direct road on Ladysmith have become a possibility; but no guns had
reached the summit, and the troops there were so far from being able to
render assistance that they were with difficulty maintaining their
desperate resistance. As the two rifle regiments were therefore exposed
to a concentrated fire from the Boer batteries, and were without
support, they were directed to withdraw, but the order had to be
repeated three times before it was obeyed. The fire slackened at this
point to some extent in the afternoon, no farther advance being
attempted, but it raged as hotly as ever on the summit of Spion Kop.
As neither General Buller nor Warren had come up to see the state of
things on the all-important position of Spion Kop, General Coke went
down in the evening to explain the situation.
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