The Garrison, Eighty
Strong, Was Fiercely Beset By Several Hundred Boers, And The Post
Was Eventually Carried After A Sharp And Bloody Contest.
Kane, of
the South Lancashires, died with the words 'No surrender' upon his
lips, and Potgieter, a Boer leader, was pistolled by Kane's fellow
officer, Lefroy.
Twenty of the small garrison fell, and the
remainder were overpowered and taken.
With this vantage-ground in their possession the Boers settled down
to the task of overwhelming the main position. They attacked upon
three sides, and until morning the force was raked from end to end
by unseen riflemen. The two British guns were put out of action and
the maxim was made unserviceable by a bullet. At dawn there was a
pause in the attack, but it recommenced and continued without
intermission until sunset. The span betwixt the rising of the sun
and its last red glow in the west is a long one for the man who
spends it at his ease, but how never-ending must have seemed the
hours to this handful of men, outnumbered, surrounded, pelted by
bullets, parched with thirst, torn with anxiety, holding
desperately on with dwindling numbers to their frail defences! To
them it may have seemed a hard thing to endure so much for a tiny
fort in a savage land. The larger view of its vital importance
could have scarcely come to console the regimental officer, far
less the private. But duty carried them through, and they wrought
better than they knew, for the brave Dutchmen, exasperated by so
disproportionate a resistance, stormed up to the very trenches and
suffered as they had not suffered for many a long month.
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