Eales. When the guns were taken this
handful attempted a counter-attack, but Eales soon saw that it was a
hopeless effort, and he lost thirty of his men before he could extricate
himself. Had these men been with the others on the gun ridge they might
have restored the fight, but they had not reached it when the position
was taken, and to persevere in the attempt to retake it would have led
to certain disaster. The only just criticism to which the regiment is
open is that, having just come off blockhouse duty, they were much out
of condition, which caused the men to straggle and the movements to be
unduly slow.

It was fortunate that the command of the column devolved upon so
experienced and cool-headed a soldier as Wools-Sampson. To attempt a
counter-attack for the purpose of recapturing the guns would, in case of
disaster, have risked the camp and the convoy. The latter was the prize
which the Boers had particularly in view, and to expose it would be
to play their game. Very wisely, therefore, Wools-Sampson held the
attacking Boers off with his guns and his riflemen, while every spare
pair of hands was set to work entrenching the position and making it
impregnable against attack. Outposts were stationed upon all those
surrounding points which might command the camp, and a summons to
surrender from the Boer leader was treated with contempt. All day a
long-range fire, occasionally very severe, rained upon the camp. Colonel
Benson was brought in by the ambulance, and used his dying breath in
exhorting his subordinate to hold out. 'No more night marches' are said
to have been the last words spoken by this gallant soldier as he passed
away in the early morning after the action. On October 31st the force
remained on the defensive, but early on November 1st the gleaming of two
heliographs, one to the north-east and one to the south-west, told that
two British columns, those of De Lisle and of Barter, were hastening to
the rescue. But the Boers had passed as the storm does, and nothing but
their swathe of destruction was left to show where they had been. They
had taken away the guns during the night, and were already beyond the
reach of pursuit.

Such was the action at Brakenlaagte, which cost the British sixty men
killed and 170 wounded, together with two guns. Colonel Benson, Colonel
Guinness, Captain Eyre Lloyd of the Guards, Major Murray and Captain
Lindsay of the Scottish Horse, with seven other officers were among the