The
Head Of The Line Of Hard-Breathing Yeomen Reached The Plateau Just
As The Boers, Sweeping Over The Remnants Of The Northumberland
Fusiliers, Reached The Brink Of The Cliff.
One by one the yeomen
darted over the edge, and endeavoured to find some cover in the
face of an infernal point-blank fire.
Captain Mudie of the staff,
who went first, was shot down. So was Purvis of the Fifes, who
followed him. The others, springing over their bodies, rushed for a
small trench, and tried to restore the fight. Lieutenant Campbell,
a gallant young fellow, was shot dead as he rallied his men. Of
twenty-seven of the Fifeshires upon the hill six were killed and
eleven wounded. The statistics of the Devons are equally heroic.
Those yeomen who had not yet reached the crest were in a perfectly
impossible position, as the Boers were firing from complete cover
right down upon them. There was no alternative for them but
surrender. By seven o'clock every British soldier upon the hill,
yeoman or fusilier, had been killed, wounded, or taken. It is not
true that the supply of cartridges ran out, and the fusiliers, with
the ill-luck which has pursued the 2nd battalion, were outnumbered
and outfought by better skirmishers than themselves.
Seldom has a General found himself in a more trying position than
Clements, or extricated himself more honourably. Not only had he
lost nearly half his force, but his camp was no longer tenable, and
his whole army was commanded by the fringe of deadly rifles upon
the cliff.
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