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.
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