On Attempting To Withdraw It Was Instantly
Evident That The Boers Were On All Sides And In The Rear With A
Force Which Numbered At Least Five To One.
The camp of the main
column was only four miles away, however, and the bodyguard, having
sent messages of their precarious position, did all they could to
make a defence until help could reach them.
Colonel Laing had
fallen, shot through the heart, but found a gallant successor in
young Nairne, the adjutant. Part of the force had thrown
themselves, under Nairne and Milne, into a donga, which gave some
shelter from the sleet of bullets. The others, under Captain
Butters, held on to a ruined kraal. The Boers pushed the attack
very rapidly, however, and were soon able with their superior
numbers to send a raking fire down the donga, which made it a
perfect death-trap. Still hoping that the laggard reinforcements
would come up, the survivors held desperately on; but both in the
kraal and in the donga their numbers were from minute to minute
diminishing. There was no formal surrender and no white flag, for,
when fifty per cent of the British were down, the Boers closed in
swiftly and rushed the position. Philip Botha, the brother of the
commandant, who led the Boers, behaved with courtesy and humanity
to the survivors; but many of the wounds were inflicted with those
horrible explosive and expansive missiles, the use of which among
civilised combatants should now and always be a capital offence.
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