The whole of one section was shot dead at their post.
The alarm was given, but the outlying sentries and piquets could not move from the little shelters and walls which alone protected them from the oblique fire from an unknown direction.

Many were shot down.

Some remained hidden at the bottom of their defence pits till late in the afternoon without being able to stir.

Creeping up the dead ground on the cliffs face, which is covered with rocks and thick bushes, the Boers lined the left edge of the summit in great numbers.

Probably about 1,000 attacked that part alone, and about 200 advanced on to the top.