However, the fact, humiliating and
inexplicable, is that the guns were so left, that the whole force
was withdrawn, and that not only the ten cannon, but also the
handful of Devons, with their Colonel, and the Fusiliers were taken
prisoners in the donga which had sheltered them all day.
We have now, working from left to right, considered the operations
of Hart's Brigade at Bridle Drift, of Lyttelton's Brigade in
support, of Hildyard's which attacked Colenso, and of the luckless
batteries which were to have helped him. There remain two bodies of
troops upon the right, the further consisting of Dundonald's
mounted men who were to attack Hlangwane Hill, a fortified Boer
position upon the south of the river, while Barton's Brigade was to
support it and to connect this attack with the central operations.
Dundonald's force was entirely too weak for such an operation as
the capture of the formidable entrenched hill, and it is probable
that the movement was meant rather as a reconnaissance than as an
assault. He had not more than a thousand men in all, mostly
irregulars, and the position which faced him was precipitous and
entrenched, with barbed-wire entanglements and automatic guns.
