The Prisoners Were
Laid Upon Their Faces, The Men Knocked Loopholes In The Mud Walls
Of The Kraal, And A Blunt Soldierly Answer Was Returned To The
Demand For Surrender.
But it was a desperate business.
The attackers were five to one,
and the five were soldiers of De Wet, the hard-bitten veterans of a
hundred encounters. The captured wagons in a long double row
stretched out over the plain, and under this cover the Dutchmen
swarmed up to the kraal. But the men who faced them were veterans
also, and the defence made up for the disparity of numbers. With
fine courage the Boers made their way up to the village, and
established themselves in the outlying huts, but the Mounted
Infantry clung desperately to their position. Out of the few
officers present Findlay was shot through the head, Moir and
Cameron through the heart, and Strong through the stomach. It was a
Waggon Hill upon a small scale, two dour lines of skirmishers
emptying their rifles into each other at point-blank range. Once
more, as at Bothaville, the British Mounted Infantry proved that
when it came to a dogged pelting match they could stand punishment
longer than their enemy. They suffered terribly. Fifty-one out of
the little force were on the ground, and the survivors were not
much more numerous than their prisoners. To the 1st Gordons, the
2nd Bedfords, the South Australians, and the New South Welsh men
belongs the honour of this magnificent defence.
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