The scene on the summit is thus described by The Times correspondent:—"The hill-top was almost dripping with blood; not a boulder escaped its splash of crimson, and the innumerable splinters and chips of the ironstone blocks indicated the terrific nature of our fire. Most of the dead or wounded Boers were carried off—thirty of the more severely wounded were found in their hospital a quarter of a mile away—but here and there a dead man proved that here the Transvaal had sent its men down for the first time to meet the oncoming column."
"I shall never forget the faces of some of those who had fallen in the final rush," says Colonel Verner, of the dead of the Naval Brigade. "They lay about in every attitude, many with their rifles, with bayonets fixed, tightly clutched in their hands, and in some cases still held at the charge. There were the same hard-featured, clean-cut faces, which but a short time before I had watched laboriously skirmishing across the veldt, now pale in death, but with the same set expression of being in terrible earnest to see the business through."
SAILORS CARRYING THEIR WOUNDED COMRADES TO THE HOSPITAL AT SIMONSTOWN.
The enemy fled towards his right along the ridge; others mounted their horses and made off to the north. The Lancers and Rimington's Scouts essayed pursuit, but hurrying after the enemy had to pass between two seemingly untenanted kopjes. As the mounted men drew near to these, the slopes burst into flame and a sheet of lead checked the pursuit. The force which thus suddenly intervened was afterwards believed to have been a detachment of Transvaalers under General Cronje, whose coming Delarey was awaiting. The cavalry were too exhausted to follow up. "For the second time," wrote Lord Methuen, "I longed for a Cavalry Brigade and Horse Artillery Battery to let me reap the fruits of a hard-fought action." Had he been able to launch a strong force of mounted men upon the enemy, the Boer guns must have been captured, the Boer army destroyed, and the relief of Kimberley without further fighting might well have been assured. There would then have been no Modder River, no Magersfontein. As it was, all that could be done was for the artillery to shell the fugitives at long range.
The deadliness of the Boer fire is seen in the heavy losses of the Naval Brigade and in the fact that most of those who reached the summit of the kopje unwounded had bullets through their clothes or equipment. A marine officer had his water bottle and revolver shot away, his leather belt cut, and the magazine of his rifle carried off by a bullet, but escaped injury himself.
WOUNDED SAILORS IN THE ROYAL NAVAL HOSPITAL AT SIMONSTOWN.
Nov. 25, 1899.] Losses at Enslin.