onga, which made it a perfect death-trap. Still hoping
that the laggard reinforcements would come up, the survivors held
desperately on; but both in the kraal and in the donga their numbers
were from minute to minute diminishing. There was no formal surrender
and no white flag, for, when fifty per cent of the British were down,
the Boers closed in swiftly and rushed the position. Philip Botha, the
brother of the commandant, who led the Boers, behaved with courtesy and
humanity to the survivors; but many of the wounds were inflicted with
those horrible explosive and expansive missiles, the use of which among
civilised combatants should now and always be a capital offence. To
disable one's adversary is a painful necessity of warfare, but nothing
can excuse the wilful mutilation and torture which is inflicted by these
brutal devices.

'How many of you are there?' asked Botha. 'A hundred,' said an officer.
'It is not true. There are one hundred and twenty. I counted you as you
came along.' The answer of the Boer leader shows how carefully the small
force had been nursed until it was in an impossible position. The margin
was a narrow one, however, for within fifteen minutes of the disaster
White's guns were at work. There may be some question as to whether the
rescuing force could have come sooner, but there can be none as to
the resistance of the bodyguard. They held out to the last cartridge.
Colonel Laing and three officers with sixteen men were killed, four
officers and twenty-two men were wounded. The high proportion of fatal
casualties can only be explained by the deadly character of the Boer
bullets. Hardly a single horse of the bodyguard was left unwounded, and
the profit to the victors, since they were unable to carry away their
prisoners, lay entirely in the captured rifles. It is worthy of record
that the British wounded were despatched to Heilbron without guard
through the Boer forces. That they arrived there unmolested is due
to the forbearance of the enemy and to the tact and energy of
Surgeon-Captain Porter, who commanded the convoy.

Encouraged by this small success, and stimulated by the news that
Hertzog and Kritzinger had succeeded in penetrating the Colony without
disaster, De Wet now prepared to follow them. British scouts to the
north of Kroonstad reported horsemen riding south and east, sometimes
alone, sometimes in small parties. They were recruits going to swell
the forces of De Wet. On January 23rd