t formidable hill which had been so scourged by our
artillery. With a grand rush they swept up the slope, but were met by
a horrible fire. Every rock spurted flame, and the front ranks withered
away before the storm of the Mauser. An eye-witness has recorded that
the brigade was hardly visible amid the sand knocked up by the bullets.
For an instant they fell back into cover, and then, having taken their
breath, up they went again, with a deep-chested sailor roar. There were
but four hundred in all, two hundred seamen and two hundred marines, and
the losses in that rapid rush were terrible. Yet they swarmed up, their
gallant officers, some of them little boy-middies, cheering them on.
Ethelston, the commander of the 'Powerful,' was struck down. Plumbe
and Senior of the Marines were killed. Captain Prothero of the 'Doris'
dropped while still yelling to his seamen to 'take that kopje and be
hanged to it!' Little Huddart, the middy, died a death which is worth
many inglorious years. Jones of the Marines fell wounded, but rose again
and rushed on with his men. It was on these gallant marines, the men who
are ready to fight anywhere and anyhow, moist or dry, that the heaviest
loss fell. When at last they made good their foothold upon the crest
of that murderous hill they had left behind them three officers and
eighty-eight men out of a total of 206--a loss within a few minutes of
nearly 50 per cent. The bluejackets, helped by the curve of the hill,
got off with a toll of eighteen of their number. Half the total British
losses of the action fell upon this little body of men, who upheld most
gloriously the honour and reputation of the service from which they were
drawn. With such men under the white ensign we leave our island homes in
safety behind us.

The battle of Enslin had cost us some two hundred of killed and wounded,
and beyond the mere fact that we had cleared our way by another stage
towards Kimberley it is difficult to say what advantage we had from it.
We won the kopjes, but we lost our men. The Boer killed and wounded were
probably less than half of our own, and the exhaustion and weakness of
our cavalry forbade us to pursue and prevented us from capturing their
guns. In three days the men had fought two exhausting actions in a
waterless country and under a tropical sun. Their exertions had been
great and yet were barren of result. Why this should be so was naturally
the subject of keen discussion both in the camp a