All Day A Long-Range Fire,
Occasionally Very Severe, Rained Upon The Camp.
Colonel Benson was
brought in by the ambulance, and used his dying breath in exhorting
his subordinate to hold out.
'No more night marches' are said to
have been the last words spoken by this gallant soldier as he
passed away in the early morning after the action. On October 31st
the force remained on the defensive, but early on November 1st the
gleaming of two heliographs, one to the north-east and one to the
south-west, told that two British columns, those of De Lisle and of
Barter, were hastening to the rescue. But the Boers had passed as
the storm does, and nothing but their swathe of destruction was
left to show where they had been. They had taken away the guns
during the night, and were already beyond the reach of pursuit.
Such was the action at Brakenlaagte, which cost the British sixty
men killed and 170 wounded, together with two guns. Colonel Benson,
Colonel Guinness, Captain Eyre Lloyd of the Guards, Major Murray
and Captain Lindsay of the Scottish Horse, with seven other
officers were among the dead, while sixteen officers were wounded.
The net result of the action was that the British rear-guard had
been annihilated, but that the main body and the convoy, which was
the chief object of the attack, was saved. The Boer loss was
considerable, being about one hundred and fifty. In spite of the
Boer success nothing could suit the British better than hard
fighting of the sort, since whatever the immediate result of it
might be, it must necessarily cause a wastage among the enemy which
could never be replaced. The gallantry of the Boer charge was only
equalled by that of the resistance offered round the guns, and it
is an action to which both sides can look back without shame or
regret. It was feared that the captured guns would soon be used to
break the blockhouse line, but nothing of the kind was attempted,
and within a few weeks they were both recovered by British columns.
In order to make a consecutive and intelligible narrative, I will
continue with an account of the operations in this south-eastern
portion of the Transvaal from the action of Brakenlaagte down to
the end of the year 1901. These were placed in the early part of
November, under the supreme command of General Bruce Hamilton, and
that energetic commander set in motion a number of small columns,
which effected numerous captures. He was much helped in his work by
the new lines of blockhouses, one of which extended from Standerton
to Ermelo, while another connected Brugspruit with Greylingstad.
The huge country was thus cut into manageable districts, and the
fruits were soon seen by the large returns of prisoners which came
from this part of the seat of war.
Upon December 3rd Bruce Hamilton, who had the valuable assistance
of Wools-Sampson to direct his intelligence, struck swiftly out
from Ermelo and fell upon a Boer laager in the early morning,
capturing ninety-six prisoners.
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