During this action Lyttelton had held the Boers in their trenches opposite to him by advancing to within 1500 yards of them, but the attack was not pushed further.

On the evening of this day, January 20th, the British had gained some miles of ground, and the total losses had been about three hundred killed and wounded.

The troops were in good heart, and all promised well for the future.

Again the men lay where they had fought, and again the dawn heard the crash of the great guns and the rattle of the musketry.
The operations of this day began with a sustained cannonade from the field batteries and 61st Howitzer Battery, which was as fiercely answered by the enemy.

About eleven the infantry began to go forward with an advance which would have astonished the martinets of Aldershot, an irregular fringe of crawlers, wrigglers, writhers, crouchers, all cool and deliberate, giving away no points in this grim game of death.
Where now were the officers with their distinctive dresses and flashing swords, where the valiant rushes over the open, where the men who were too proud to lie down ?--the tactics of three months ago seemed as obsolete as those of the Middle Ages.