Every detail showed the ingenuity of the controlling mind.

The armoured train, painted green and tied round with scrub, stood unperceived among the clumps of bushes which surrounded the town.
On October 24th a savage bombardment commenced, which lasted with intermissions for seven months.

The Boers had brought an enormous gun across from Pretoria, throwing a 96-pound shell, and this, with many smaller pieces, played upon the town.

The result was as futile as our own artillery fire has so often been when directed against the Boers.
As the Mafeking guns were too weak to answer the enemy's fire, the only possible reply lay in a sortie, and upon this Colonel Powell decided.
It was carried out with great gallantry on the evening of October 27th, when about a hundred men under Captain FitzClarence moved out against the Boer trenches with instructions to use the bayonet only.

The position was carried with a rush, and many of the Boers bayoneted before they could disengage themselves from the tarpaulins which covered them.
The trenches behind fired wildly in the darkness, and it is probable that as many of their own men as of ours were hit by their rifle fire.
The total loss in this gallant affair was six killed, eleven wounded, and two prisoners.