w ridge the Boers had leapt upon
their horses and were already nearly 1,000 yards away. Our gallant
fellows were out of breath with the arduous climb, and as it is almost
impossible to do much effective shooting when one is "blown," and the
cavalry had not appeared on the scene, the enemy got off nearly scot
free.

Amongst a number of wounded men brought down by our train from Modder
River was a private of that fine corps, the R.M.L.I., who had, after
passing through the perils of Graspan, suffered an extraordinary
casualty at the Modder River fight. He was standing near one of the 47
guns which was firing Lyddite shells at the enemy's trenches. Suddenly
the force of the explosion burst the drum of his right ear and, of
course, rendered him stone deaf on that side. He was an excellent
fellow, very intelligent and well informed, and I hope by this time the
surgeons at Simon's Bay naval hospital have provided him with an
artificial ear-drum. This marine had, as said above, come out of the
awful fire at Graspan unscathed, but I counted no less than _five_
bullet holes in his uniform; two of them were through his trousers, two
had pierced his sleeves, and the other had passed through his coat just
to the left of his heart!

The kopjes which were ultimately carried by the gallantry of our troops
at Graspan had been subjected to an awful shell fire before the infantry
attack. Nevertheless, the enemy was able to meet the advance with a
rifle fire which swept our men down by scores. On the right of the naval
brigade there was a little group of nineteen men, of these one only
remained! The Boers exhibited here, as elsewhere, the most marvellous
skill in taking advantage of cover. These farmers lay curled up behind
their stones and boulders while shrapnel bullets by thousands rained
over their position, and common shell threw masses of earth and rock
into the air. Then at the moment when the artillery fire was compelled
to cease, owing to the near approach of our infantry, the crafty
sharp-shooters crawled out of their nooks and crannies and used their
rifles with deadly precision and rapidity.

On this point--the general ineffectiveness of artillery fire when the
enemy possesses good cover--the history of modern warfare repeats
itself. The Russian bombardments of Plevna were quite futile, and
General Todleben acknowledged that it sometimes required a whole day's
shell fire to kill a single Turkish soldier. At the fight round