The pressure was most severe upon the shallow trenches in the front, which had been abandoned by the Boers and were held by the Lancashire Fusiliers.

They were enfiladed by rifle and cannon, and the dead and wounded outnumbered the hale.

So close were the skirmishers that on at least one occasion Boer and Briton found themselves on each side of the same rock.

Once a handful of men, tormented beyond endurance, sprang up as a sign that they had had enough, but Thorneycroft, a man of huge physique, rushed forward to the advancing Boers.

'You may go to hell!' he yelled.