That night the column received orders to be under arms at dawn, when a move was to be made for Graspan, where was the enemy's position. The Boer force being believed insignificant, only the Ninth Brigade, with the artillery, cavalry and mounted infantry would, it was thought, be required. The Guards were accordingly left with the baggage--they had done the hardest work at Belmont and had fully earned the right to a rest--and were directed to march north to Enslin, which was to be the next halting point.
[Illustration: DETRAINING THE WOUNDED AT WYNBERG.]
[Sidenote: Advance of the Ninth Brigade.]
Soon after 6 a.m. of the 25th, the Ninth Brigade found itself in front of the Boer position. This lay along a line of low but steep hills; upon the extreme left, connected with these hills by a long, grassy ridge, was a small, stony kopje, which is thus described by Colonel Verner: "Five hundred yards from the kopje's summit the plain rose gradually, and scattered boulders were to be seen. Two hundred yards nearer, the slope steepened and the boulders were more numerous. Another hundred and fifty yards and the slope became almost a precipice--a mass of rock and scree--and could only be climbed on hands and knees in many places. Here and there were vertical patches of cliff; everywhere rocks and boulders gave fine cover." Here, it was afterwards discovered, was posted the old guard of the Boer force--a party of 300 Transvaalers, but recently arrived from Kimberley. The enemy's strength was actually between 2,000 and 3,000, with one heavy gun, five field guns, a Maxim 1-pounder automatic--the dreaded "Pom-Pom" which Lord Methuen's men were now to face for the first time--and a rifle-calibre Maxim. The Boers were under the command of General Delarey; they appear to have been a different force from that which had fought at Belmont.
[Sidenote: Bombardment of the Boer position.]
[Sidenote: NOV. 25, 1899.] _Trying to Silence an Unseen Gun._]
In consequence of the heavy loss which he had sustained in storming the kopjes at Belmont without full artillery preparation, Lord Methuen brought up his field batteries and two naval guns, and opened the battle by a prolonged bombardment of the Boer position. Already, about 6 a.m., the enemy had fired the first shot at a party of Rimington's Scouts who ventured within range. The field-guns began their work at a range of 2,500 yards, and then closed in to 1,500. The naval guns opened at 5,000 yards and closed to 2,800. The Boers vigorously replied with their guns, but as these were scattered and not massed together, as they furthermore fired smokeless powder, and were in some cases posted just behind the crest of the ridge, they were almost impossible to locate. Indeed, in this battle, as in the Belmont action, the enemy's invisibility was nerve-shaking. There were no masses of men to be seen and made into targets; no gleaming array of guns invited a deluge of projectiles. But for the crackling roar and the quick, heavy banging of the "Pom-Pom" and the field-guns, but for the flashes of fire from the rifles, the line of kopjes might have been the haunt of only the little "dikkopf" and the great South African vulture.