r positions, some from
a soldierly hope that victory might finally incline to them, others
because it was clearly safer to lie among the rocks than to cross the
bullet-swept spaces beyond. Those portions of the force who extricated
themselves do not appear to have realised how many of their comrades had
remained behind, and so as the gap gradually increased between the men
who were stationary and the men who fell back all hope of the two bodies
reuniting became impossible. All the infantry who remained upon the
hillside were captured. The rest rallied at a point fifteen hundred
yards from the scene of the surprise, and began an orderly retreat to
Molteno.

In the meanwhile three powerful Boer guns upon the ridge had opened
fire with great accuracy, but fortunately with defective shells. Had
the enemy's contractors been as trustworthy as their gunners in this
campaign, our losses would have been very much heavier, and it is
possible that here we catch a glimpse of some consequences of that
corruption which was one of the curses of the country. The guns were
moved with great smartness along the ridge, and opened fire again and
again, but never with great result. Our own batteries, the 74th and
77th, with our handful of mounted men, worked hard in covering the
retreat and holding back the enemy's pursuit.

It is a sad subject to discuss, but it is the one instance in a campaign
containing many reverses which amounts to demoralisation among the
troops engaged. The Guards marching with the steadiness of Hyde Park
off the field of Magersfontein, or the men of Nicholson's Nek chafing
because they were not led in a last hopeless charge, are, even in
defeat, object lessons of military virtue. But here fatigue and
sleeplessness had taken all fire and spirit out of the men. They dropped
asleep by the roadside and had to be prodded up by their exhausted
officers. Many were taken prisoners in their slumber by the enemy who
gleaned behind them. Units broke into small straggling bodies, and it
was a sorry and bedraggled force which about ten o'clock came wandering
into Molteno. The place of honour in the rear was kept throughout by
the Irish Rifles, who preserved some military formation to the end. Our
losses in killed and wounded were not severe--military honour would have
been less sore had they been more so. Twenty-six killed, sixty-eight
wounded--that is all. But between the men on the hillside and the
somnambulists of the colum