of the straits to which the gallant garrison was now reduced by famine, disease, and war increased the earnest desire of officers and men to engage the enemy and, even at the greatest price, to break his lines.  In spite of the various inexplicable features which the actions of Colenso and Spion Kop presented, the confidence of the army in Sir Redvers Buller was still firm, and the knowledge that he himself would personally direct the operations, instead of leaving their conduct to a divisional commander, gave general satisfaction and relief.

On the afternoon of February 4 the superior officers were made acquainted with the outlines of the plan of action to be followed.  The reader will, perhaps, remember the description in a former letter of the Boer position before Potgieter’s and Trichardt’s Drift as a horizontal note of interrogation, of which Spion Kop formed the centre angle—­/\.  The fighting of the previous week had been directed towards the straight line, and on the angle.  The new operation was aimed at the curve.  The general scheme was to seize the hills which formed the left of the enemy’s position and roll him up from left to right.  It was known that the Boers were massed mainly in their central camp behind Spion Kop, and that, as no demonstration was intended against the position in front of Trichardt’s Drift, their whole force would be occupying the curve and guarding its right flank.  The details of the plan were well conceived.

The battle would begin by a demonstration against the Brakfontein position, which the Boers had fortified by four tiers of trenches, with bombproof casemates, barbed wire entanglements, and a line of redoubts, so that it was obviously too strong to be carried frontally.  This demonstration would be made by Wynne’s Brigade (formerly Woodgate’s), supported by six batteries of Artillery, the Howitzer Battery, and the two 4.7-inch naval guns.  These troops crossed the river by the pontoon bridge at Potgieter’s on the 3rd and 4th, relieving Lyttelton’s Brigade which had been in occupation of the advanced position on the low kopjes.

A new pontoon bridge was thrown at the angle of the river a mile below Potgieter’s, the purpose of which seemed to be to enable the frontal attack to be fully supported.  While the Artillery preparation of the advance against Brakfontein and Wynne’s advance were going on, Clery’s Division (consisting of Hart’s Brigade and Hildyard’s) and Lyttelton’s Brigade were to mass near the new pontoon bridge (No. 2), as if about to support the frontal movement.  When the bombardment had been in progress for two hours these three brigades were to move, not towards the Brakfontein position, but eastwards to Munger’s Drift, throw a pontoon bridge covered first by one battery of Field Artillery withdrawn from the demonstration, secondly by the fire of guns which had been dragged to the summit of Swartkop, and which formed a powerful battery of fourteen pieces, viz., six 12-pounder