ing their grip.

'Hollo, here is a river!' cried Codrington when he led his forlorn hope
to the right and found that the Riet had to be crossed. 'I was given to
understand that the Modder was fordable everywhere,' says Lord Methuen
in his official despatch. One cannot read the account of the operations
without being struck by the casual, sketchy knowledge which cost us so
dearly. The soldiers slogged their way through, as they have slogged it
before; but the task might have been made much lighter for them had we
but clearly known what it was that we were trying to do. On the other
hand, it is but fair to Lord Methuen to say that his own personal
gallantry and unflinching resolution set the most stimulating example to
his troops. No General could have done more to put heart into his men.

And now, as the long weary scorching hungry day came to an end, the
Boers began at last to flinch from their trenches. The shrapnel was
finding them out and this force upon their flank filled them with vague
alarm and with fears for their precious guns. And so as night fell
they stole across the river, the cannon were withdrawn, the trenches
evacuated, and next morning, when the weary British and their anxious
General turned themselves to their grim task once more, they found a
deserted village, a line of empty houses, and a litter of empty Mauser
cartridge-cases to show where their tenacious enemy had stood.

Lord Methuen, in congratulating the troops upon their achievement, spoke
of 'the hardest-won victory in our annals of war,' and some such phrase
was used in his official despatch. It is hypercritical, no doubt, to
look too closely at a term used by a wounded man with the flush of
battle still upon him, but still a student of military history must
smile at such a comparison between this action and such others as
Albuera or Inkerman, where the numbers of British engaged were not
dissimilar. A fight in which five hundred men are killed and wounded
cannot be classed in the same category as those stern and desperate
encounters where more of the victors were carried than walked from the
field of battle. And yet there were some special features which will
differentiate the fight at Modder River from any of the hundred actions
which adorn the standards of our regiments. It was the third battle
which the troops had fought within the week, they were under fire for
ten or twelve hours, were waterless under a tropical sun, and weak from
wan