hey could see very little and do less. The cavalry guarded
the left flank passively, and I remember no particular incident except
that our own artillery flung the fragments of two premature shells among
us and wounded a soldier in the Devonshire Regiment. The following fact,
however, is instructive. Captain Stewart's squadron of the South African
Light Horse dismounted, held an advanced kopje all day long under a
heavy fire, and never lost a man. Two hundred yards further back was
another kopje held by two companies of regular infantry under equal
fire. The infantry had more than twenty men hit.

On the 22nd the action languished and the generals consulted. The
infantry had made themselves masters of all the edge of the plateau, and
the regiments clustered in the steep re-entrants like flies on the side
of a wall. The Boers endeavoured to reach them with shells, and a
desultory musketry duel also proceeded.

During the afternoon I went with Captain Brooke to visit some of the
battalions of General Hart's Brigade and see what sort of punishment
they were receiving. As we rode up the watercourse which marks the
bottom of the valley a shrapnel shell cleared the western crest line and
exploded among one of the battalions. At first it seemed to have done no
harm, but as we climbed higher and nearer we met a stretcher carried by
six soldiers. On it lay a body with a handkerchief thrown across the
face. The soldiers bearing the stretcher were all covered with blood.

We proceeded and soon reached the battalions. A company of the Dublin
Fusiliers were among those captured in the armoured train, and I have
the pleasure of knowing most of the officers of this regiment. So we
visited them first--a dozen gentlemen--begrimed, unwashed, unshaven,
sitting on the hillside behind a two-foot wall of rough stones and near
a wooden box, which they called the 'Officers' Mess.' They were in
capital spirits in spite of every abominable circumstance.

'What did you lose in the action?'

'Oh, about fifty. Poor Hensley was killed, you know; that was the worst
of it.'

Captain Hensley was one of the smallest and bravest men in the Army, and
the Dublin Fusiliers, who should be good judges, regarded him as their
very best officer for all military affairs, whether attack, retreat, or
reconnaissance. Each had lost a friend, but collectively as a regiment
they had lost a powerful weapon.

'Very few of us left now,' said the colonel, surveying h