"Is this to be a repetition of the Gordon case?" asked Colonel Malcolmson of Captain Bryan, a young Irish soldier of fortune, who had served in Ladysmith during the early stages of the war. "Are we always to be too late? I pray that we may not be so now. Major Salkeld and his men are worth a king's ransom."
"I hope the present tense will hold good, sir," said the Irishman grimly. "The enemy have evacuated their positions, which looks bad."
Things did look dark, for when the colonel and his men arrived at the mouth of the donga where Major Salkeld had been trapped, thousands of empty cartridge-cases were found strewing the ground. The cases took the form of five-chambered Mauser clips.
In the middle of the donga, the relieving force found the remnant of Major Salkeld's troop, and tears came into the eyes of the bronzed warriors as they gazed upon the inanimate forms of the gallant lads from Maoriland, stretched behind the little breastworks formed by nature.
Some of the men still clutched their rifles, fingers on triggers, with foreheads wrinkled and savage-set lips. These lay on their stomachs, and had been hit while in the act of taking aim.
Others had rolled over in their last dying agony, and in their hands were clutched pieces of veldt grass and gravel.
Were there any survivors? Yes! A boyish form struggled to its feet and saluted the colonel, as he stood gazing in awe and wonderment at the little field of carnage. The form belonged to Jack Lovat, who merely said, "I'm pleased you have come, sir. We have done the best we could."
With the exception of the solitary wound he had received on the previous day, Jack Lovat amidst the continuous whistling storms of bullets, had not received a scratch. Major Salkeld was not killed, but had received a severe wound in the leg which floored him. Sergeant Oliphant had succumbed to a bullet through the brain not long after the commencement of the fight.
Nineteen troopers had been slain outright, four wounded mortally, while six more had been incapacitated. Jack Lovat was the only fighting survivor of the so-called little affair at Langeman's Drift.
The wounds of the living were at once attended to, and the dead reverently buried, Colonel Malcolmson officiating as chaplain and chief mourner.