probable that
no less than three hundred wounded were removed. Forty were collected by
British ambulance parties. Of the Boers who were killed in the retreat
no accurate estimate can be formed, but the dongas and kopjes beyond the
position were strewn with occasional corpses. Undoubtedly the enemy was
hard hit in personnel, and the fact that we had taken two miles of
entrenchments as well as considerable stores of ammunition proved that a
very definite and substantial success had been won.

But we were not prepared for the complete results that followed the
operations of the 27th. Neither the General nor his army expected to
enter Ladysmith without another action. Before us a smooth plain,
apparently unobstructed, ran to the foot of Bulwana, but from this
forbidding eminence a line of ridges and kopjes was drawn to the high
hills of Doorn Kloof, and seemed to interpose another serious barrier.
It was true that this last position was within range, or almost within
range, of Sir George White's guns, so that its defenders might be
caught between two fires, but we knew, and thought the Boers knew, that
the Ladysmith garrison was too feeble from want of food and other
privations to count for very much. So Sir Redvers Buller, facing the
least satisfactory assumption, determined to rest his army on the 28th,
and attack Bulwana Hill on March 1.

He accordingly sent a message by heliograph into Ladysmith to say that
he had beaten the enemy thoroughly, and was sending on his cavalry to
reconnoitre. Ladysmith had informed herself, however, of the state of
the game. Captain Tilney, from his balloon, observed all that passed in
the enemy's lines on the morning of the 28th. At first, when he heard no
artillery fire, he was depressed, and feared lest the relieving army had
retreated again. Then, as it became day, he was sure that this was not
so, for the infantry in crowds were occupying the Boer position, and the
mounted patrols pricked forward into the plain. Presently he saw the
Boers rounding up their cattle and driving them off to the north. Next
they caught and began to saddle their horses. The great white tilted
waggons of the various laagers filed along the road around the eastern
end of Bulwana. Lastly, up went a pair of shears over 'Long Tom,' and at
this he descended to the earth with the good news that the enemy were
off at last.

The garrison, however, had been mocked by false hopes before, and all
steeled themselves