For Four Hours The
Fierce Battle Raged, Until At Last The Parched And Powder-Stained
Survivors Breathed A Prayer Of
Thanks as they saw on the southern
horizon the vanguard of De Lisle riding furiously to the rescue.
For the
Last hour, since they had despaired of carrying the kraal,
the Boers had busied themselves in removing their convoy; but now,
for the second time in one day, the drivers found British rifles
pointed at their heads, and the oxen were turned once more and
brought back to those who had fought so hard to hold them.
Twenty-eight killed and twenty-six wounded were the losses in this
desperate affair. Of the Boers seventeen were left dead in front of
the kraal, and the forty-five had not escaped from the bulldog grip
which held them. There seems for some reason to have been no
effective pursuit of the Boers, and the British column held on its
way to Kroonstad.
The second incident which stands out amid the dreary chronicle of
hustlings and snipings is the surprise visit paid by Broadwood with
a small British column to the town of Reitz upon July 11th, which
resulted in the capture of nearly every member of the late
government of the Free State, save only the one man whom they
particularly wanted. The column consisted of 200 yeomen, 200 of the
7th Dragoon Guards, and two guns. Starting at 11 P.M., the raiders
rode hard all night and broke with the dawn upon the sleeping
village.
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