Royal Rifles, the Leicestershire and the Liverpool battalions, took up a
position on open ground near Lombard's Kop, supported by a regiment of
cavalry, the Border Mounted Rifles, and the Natal Carbineers with three
batteries. A fourth battery was posted on a green kopje almost directly
in line between Lombard's Kop and Rietfontein Hill. Colonel Ian
Hamilton, with the second infantry brigade, consisting of the Gordon
Highlanders, Rifle Brigade, Manchesters, and 1st Devons, formed a
strong reserve behind the long ridge connecting these points with their
left on the Newcastle road, where the Imperial Light Horse were held
ready for action when the proper time should come.

At four o'clock in the morning our infantry were all in position for the
fight, as it had been originally planned. Half an hour later they
exchanged shots with a few Boers scattered about kopjes in their front,
and from that moment, until nearly noon, they remained practically under
fire, never budging an inch, but remaining immovable, except when a
change of front became necessary to meet the Boer reinforcements, and
that was effected by an advance. Up to that point everything seemed to
be going in our favour. When there was daylight enough for gunners to
see clearly, the 42nd Battery, posted at the eastern end of a green
kopje that forms an irregular spur of Rietfontein Hill, but at a much
lower elevation, opened fire on that ridge where the Boers had planted
Long Tom.

It was interesting to watch shot after shot fall nearer the mark around
it as the gunners picked up the range, until one shell struck and burst
close to "Long Tom's" embrasure. Then the battery took to firing
shrapnel, which were so well timed that one could see projectiles from
the six guns in succession bursting at intervals along Rietfontein's
level crest, which must have been raked from end to end with a shower of