hese were our own countrymen.

It seems that a misunderstanding, of the rights and wrongs of which the
reader shall be himself a judge, arose with the enemy. When day broke,
the Boers, who were much nearer to the wounded than were our troops,
came out of their trenches with a Red Cross flag, and the firing
thereupon ceased locally. Our people ought then to have been ready to
come forward with another Red Cross flag, and an informal truce might
easily have been arranged for an hour or two. Unfortunately, however,
there was some delay on our part. The Boers therefore picked up their
own wounded, of whom there were a few, gave some of our men a little
water, and took away their rifles. All this was quite correct; but the
Boers then proceeded to strip and despoil the dead and wounded, taking
off their boots and turning out their pockets, and this so infuriated
the watching soldiers behind the wall that they forthwith fired on the
Boers, Red Cross flag notwithstanding. This, of course, was the signal
for fighting to recommence fiercely, and during the day neither side
would hear of parley. The Boers behaved cruelly in various instances,
and several wounded men who tried to crawl away were deliberately
destroyed by being shot at close quarters with many bullets.

During the 24th there was heavy firing on both sides, but no movement of
infantry on either. The army suffered some loss from the Boer artillery,
particularly the automatic guns, which were well served, and which
enfiladed many of our positions on the slopes of the low kopjes. In this
way Colonel Thorold, of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and other officers,
met their deaths. The casualties were principally in Hildyard's English
and Kitchener's Lancashire Brigades. Hart's six battalions found good
cover in the gorge of the Tugela.

Sir Redvers Buller now saw that his plan of filing his army round the
angle of the river and across the enemy's front would, in any case, be
very costly, and was perhaps impossible. He, therefore, determined to
get back to the Hlangwani plateau, and try the extreme left of the
enemy's position. He had the strategic advantage of being on interior
lines, and was consequently able to move his troops with great ease from
one flank to the other. His new plan was to pass the brigades of his
left and centre across the pontoon bridge from the left to the right, so
that Hart, who was formerly the extreme right, would now become almost
the extreme lef