On October 31st The Force Remained On The Defensive, But Early On November 1st The Gleaming Of Two Heliographs, One To The North-East And One To The South-West, Told That Two British Columns, Those Of De Lisle And Of Barter, Were Hastening To The Rescue.

But the Boers had passed as the storm does, and nothing but their swathe of destruction was left to show where they had been.

They had taken away the guns during the night, and were already beyond the reach of pursuit.

Such was the action at Brakenlaagte, which cost the British sixty men killed and 170 wounded, together with two guns. Colonel Benson, Colonel Guinness, Captain Eyre Lloyd of the Guards, Major Murray and Captain Lindsay of the Scottish Horse, with seven other officers were among the dead, while sixteen officers were wounded. The net result of the action was that the British rear-guard had been annihilated, but that the main body and the convoy, which was the chief object of the attack, was saved. The Boer loss was considerable, being about one hundred and fifty. In spite of the Boer success nothing could suit the British better than hard fighting of the sort, since whatever the immediate result of it might be, it must necessarily cause a wastage among the enemy which could never be replaced. The gallantry of the Boer charge was only equalled by that of the resistance offered round the guns, and it is an action to which both sides can look back without shame or regret.

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