succeeded to
perfection. Nearer and nearer came the strangers, and suddenly throwing
off all disguise, they made a dash for the guns. Four rounds of case
failed to stop them, and in a few minutes they were over the kopje on
which the guns stood and had ridden among the gunners, supported in
their attack by a flank fire from a number of dismounted riflemen.

The instant that the danger was realised Damant, his staff, and the
forty Yeomen who formed the escort dashed for the crest in the hope of
anticipating the Boers. So rapid was the charge of the others that they
had overwhelmed the gunners before the supports could reach the hill,
and the latter found themselves under the deadly fire of the Boer
rifles from above. Damant was hit in four places, all of his staff
were wounded, and hardly a man of the small body of Yeomanry was left
standing. Nothing could exceed their gallantry. Gaussen their captain
fell at their head. On the ridge the men about the guns were nearly all
killed or wounded. Of the gun detachment only two men remained, both of
them hit, and Jeffcoat their dying captain bequeathed them fifty pounds
each in a will drawn upon the spot. In half an hour the centre of the
British line had been absolutely annihilated. Modern warfare is on the
whole much less bloody than of old, but when one party has gained the
tactical mastery it is a choice between speedy surrender and total
destruction.

The wide-spread British wings had begun to understand that there was
something amiss, and to ride in towards the centre. An officer on the
far right peering through his glasses saw those tell-tale puffs at the
very muzzles of the British guns, which showed that they were firing
case at close quarters. He turned his squadron inwards and soon gathered
up Scott's squadron of Damant's Horse, and both rode for the kopje.
Rimington's men were appearing on the other side, and the Boers rode
off. They were unable to remove the guns which they had taken, because
all the horses had perished. 'I actually thought,' says one officer who
saw them ride away, 'that I had made a mistake and been fighting our
own men. They were dressed in our uniforms and some of them wore the
tiger-skin, the badge of Damant's Horse, round their hats.' The same
officer gives an account of the scene on the gun-kopje. 'The result
when we got to the guns was this, gunners all killed except two (both
wounded), pom-pom officers and men all killed, maxim all kille