It was necessary, however, to send two {p.228} of Lyttelton's battalions and two batteries to extricate them.

Hart's attack therefore had failed, and his division contributed nothing further except the menace of its presence, which must retain some of the enemy to resist a possible renewal.
A yet more decisive mishap meanwhile had occurred in another part of the field.

Reckoning that Hart and Hildyard were to attack in mutual support, the time had come for the latter to advance, and he had done so.

The beginning of his movement was to have been covered by the six naval 12-pounders accompanying Long's two field batteries, and a position had been appointed them to that effect; it being intended apparently that the army guns should not come into action till later, when the development of Hildyard's movement would permit them to approach the enemy within their shorter range without losing the necessary support of infantry fire,--directly by the 6th brigade, specifically charged with that duty, and indirectly by the occupation which Hildyard's attack would necessarily give the Boers.

Instead, however, of attending closely to the requirements of a movement {p.229} where a certain exactness of touch was evidently necessary, Long's two field batteries, leaving their infantry escort behind, galloped rapidly forward on the east side of the railroad and came into action 1200 yards from Fort Wylie, and, as Buller judged, only 300[28] yards from the enemy's rifle pits.