The next instant from front and rear, almost simultaneously, there were flashes and a scattered roar, while the sides of the pass took up the reports, forming a deafening roll of thunder running down towards the plain.
Before this was half-over there was the rush of men before us, the stones and the spaces between seeming to be alive with running and leaping Boers, shouting and cheering like mad as they came on, their purpose being to scare us and frighten the horses into a stampede, which, if it had followed, must have been equally fatal to their comrades attacking from the rear as it would have been to us; but, instead of the enemy being gratified by hearing the clattering of hundreds of hoofs, they were received by a series of sharp volleys proceeding from our two lines of men.

These were so inadequately returned that the officers in the rear ran to and fro bidding us stand firm and keep up the fire, no attempt being made to fall back towards the gap where the horses were tethered.
Those were tremendously exciting minutes, and in the confusion, the crack of the rifles, and the reverberations, I hardly know what I did, except that I kept on firing without taking aim, for the simple reason that there was nothing visible in the smoke and darkness unless one had tried to aim at a spot from whence flashes came; and as the men attacking us were constantly on the move, that would have been useless.
I found afterwards, on talking to the men above me, that they had behaved in precisely the same way as I did--they kept on firing; while all were in constant expectation of having to club their rifles to beat back the enemy should they come on with a rush.
However, we never came to close quarters that night; for, failing in sweeping our men back in the first surprise, the enemy drew off a short distance till all were well under cover, and then kept up their fire, each party of the enemy seeming utterly regardless of the risk to their own comrades beyond us.
In the midst of the roar and reverberation I was startled by a hand laid upon my shoulder, and, turning sharply, I found the sergeant by my side.
"Fall back," he said; and as I obeyed I thrust my hand to my cartridge-belt so as to reload, when, to my utter astonishment, I found it was two-thirds empty.

This was soon remedied; for, as we--that is to say, about half the defenders of the upper side of our stronghold--stood fast, non-commissioned officers came running along and thrust packets of cartridges into our hands.
It was, as I have said, very dark; but I could just manage to see beneath the canopy of smoke which rose slowly that half the lower line of defenders had fallen back.

Directly after, we were all hurried to the front of the great niche and ordered to man the rocks there in front of the horses.
While settling ourselves in every advantageous position we could find, the firing went on as briskly as ever, the Boers blazing away at our two lines of men, who replied as fast as they could load; and, as far as I could tell by the sound, the fusillade did not slacken.
Then I began to understand what was about to happen, and could not help laughing to myself when I saw the part of our line we had left firing suddenly come hurrying in, to pass through an opening in our ranks; and no sooner were they safe than the lower line fell back and came running into the shelter, to join up with the others.
As soon as these detachments were out of the way we had orders to fire four cartridges each, half of us firing as well up the pass as possible, the other half to fire as far downwards as they could.

After these four rounds each we were to cease firing: this was, of course, to prevent the Boers from noticing that our fire had slackened and then ceased; and it answered exactly as the Colonel had intended, for the bull-headed and obstinate enemy went on for the next half-hour firing away at the stones where we had been, each side believing that a portion of the reports and echoes were caused by our firing, and all the time our men stood laughing and enjoying the blunder, and pretty sure that the enemy must be bringing down some of their own comrades.