it was in fact within seventy yards of an occupied sangar, raised the
white flag; and almost at the same moment a bugle sounded the Cease
Fire. Neither the white flag nor the bugle call was authorized by
Carleton; but a glance at the situation showed him that they could not
be repudiated and after a gallant struggle to maintain an indefensible
position he surrendered. Nearly a thousand men were led away into
captivity.

The main infantry attack was made by a force of five battalions with six
field batteries under the command of Grimwood. He marched out of
Ladysmith soon after midnight, but had not covered half the distance to
the point of attack when an unfortunate incident deprived him of all his
artillery and of two of his battalions. The guns marching in the centre
of the column and acting under orders which were not communicated to
Grimwood, diverged to the right and were followed by the two battalions
in rear; and the absence of nearly half the force was not discovered by
him until daybreak, and after he had taken up the position assigned
south of Long Hill. Daybreak also revealed the fact that Long Hill which
was assumed to be the Boer left was not occupied, and that Long Tom from
Impati had been emplaced on Pepworth Hill. The cavalry brigade under
French upon whom Grimwood relied to protect his right flank was two
miles away in his rear; and finding himself attacked on that flank
instead of from the front he was compelled to swing round and almost
reverse his front. Thus far the general scheme of attack had signally
failed. Carleton on the left had not reached Nicholson's Nek and was in
trouble; Grimwood with nearly half of his command gone astray, and
having discovered that the enemy's left was not on Long Hill but on
Lombard's Kop, had to improvise a scheme of his own; while French
instead of conforming to Grimwood was compelling Grimwood to conform to
him. At 8 a.m. Grimwood was suffering severely from artillery fire, and