. Captain Norman,
of C squadron, then retired his men, who withdrew in good order. B
squadron having lost Yockney, its brave leader, heard no order, so they
held their ground until few of them had escaped the driving sleet of
lead. Many of the men were struck three and four times. There was no
surrender, and the extermination of B company added another laurel, even
at a moment of defeat, to the regiment whose reputation was so grimly
upheld. The Boer victors walked in among the litter of stricken men
and horses. 'Practically all of them were dressed in khaki and had the
water-bottles and haversacks of our soldiers. One of them snatched a
bayonet from a dead man, and was about to despatch one of our wounded
when he was stopped in the nick of time by a man in a black suit, who, I
afterwards heard, was De la Rey himself...The feature of the action
was the incomparable heroism of our dear old Colonel Wools-Sampson.'
So wrote a survivor of B company, himself shot through the body. It was
four hours before a fresh British advance reoccupied the ridge, and by
that time the Boers had disappeared. Some seventy killed and wounded,
many of them terribly mutilated, were found on the scene of the
disaster. It is certainly a singular coincidence that at distant points
of the seat of war two of the crack irregular corps should have suffered
so severely within three days of each other. In each case, however,
their prestige was enhanced rather than lowered by the result. These
incidents tend, however, to shake the belief that scouting is better
performed in the Colonial than in the regular forces.

Of the Boer attacks upon British posts to which allusion has been made,
that upon Belfast, in the early morning of January 7th, appears to have
been very gallantly and even desperately pushed. On the same date
a number of smaller attacks, which may have been meant simply as
diversions, were made upon Wonderfontein, Nooitgedacht, Wildfontein,
Pan, Dalmanutha, and Machadodorp. These seven separate attacks,
occurring simultaneously over sixty miles, show that the Boer forces
were still organised and under one effective control. The general object
of the operations was undoubtedly to cut Lord Roberts's communications
upon that side and to destroy a considerable section of the railway.

The town of Belfast was strongly held by Smith-Dorrien, with 1750
men, of which 1300 were infantry belonging to the Royal Irish, the
Shropshires, and the Gordons.