An enfilading rifle fire had been sweeping across this open space, but the wall in front does not appear to have been occupied by the enemy, who held the kopje above it.

To avoid the cross fire the soldiers ran in single file under the shelter of the wall, which covered them to the right, and so reached the other wall across their front.

Here there was a second long delay, the men dribbling up from below, and firing over the top of the wall and between the chinks of the stones.

The Dublin Fusiliers, through being in a more difficult position, had been unable to get up as quickly as the others, and most of the hard-breathing excited men who crowded under the wall were of the Rifles and of the Irish Fusiliers.

The air was so full of bullets that it seemed impossible to live upon the other side of this shelter.