It was clear, too, that they had learnt to respect the quality of the defence opposed to them. They gave no sign of an intention to advance in the open. The bombardment was vigorous and sustained, but except for the few figures moving about the gun at the entrance, not a man of them was seen. This inaction seemed ominous to Tom. He could not think that they meditated another night attack, for, unfamiliar with the ground, they would be at a disadvantage in darkness. Was it not more probable that, relying on the bombardment to distract the defenders and to drive them under cover, they were creeping through the brushwood nearer and nearer to the trench, and would by-and-by make a rush, with the hope of profiting by surprise? This was the movement that he most dreaded, because the result must depend absolutely on the numbers opposed to him.
Just after mid-day the bombardment suddenly ceased. For a few minutes there was a breathless silence in the nullah: nothing was heard but the gurgling of the stream. Then the storm broke. From the bushes on each side, within a hundred yards of the trench, burst a swarm of men at the double. Tom had already summoned his men to their posts in the trench, and the masses of the enemy had covered only a few yards when they encountered a hail of lead from the parapet. In spite of many gaps in their crowded ranks they dashed forward with ferocious yells, and pressed the charge up to the very edge of the trench. There, however, they came under fire from some of the best marksmen, whom Tom had stationed in the block-houses and also in the bushes on higher ground in the rear. They reeled under the double fire; a few who sprang over the parapet into the trench were bayoneted or clubbed; the rest turned and fled panic-stricken into the cover they had lately left with such confidence, many of them falling to the shots of the triumphant Wahehe.
In the silence that followed, Tom was startled by sounds of firing from the north. It flashed upon him that the Germans had arranged a simultaneous attack on the cleft. The guard of twenty men he had posted there, behind their barricades, ought to be able to hold their own on ground so favourable to them; but Tom at this moment felt that he must see for himself how they were faring. The repulse of the main attack gave him at least a respite: he would not be absent more than thirty or forty minutes; so leaving Mirambo in command, he hurried up the nullah.