dark, because the officers in charge had preferred to go fighting on the
loose and got wounded. The men lay in pools of rain among the dead.
Lieutenant Haag, 18th Hussars, kept apologising to the man next him for
using his legs as a pillow. At dawn he found the man was a Rifleman long
dead, his head in a puddle of blood, his stiff arms raised to the sky.
Many such things happened. Under the storm of fire it had been
impossible to recover all the wounded before dark. Some lay out fully
twenty-four hours without help, or food, or drink. One of the Light
Horse was used by a Boer as a rest for his rifle. When I reached Waggon
Hill about nine this morning the last of the wounded were being brought
down. Nearly all the Light Horse dead (twenty of them) had been taken
away separately, but at the foot of the hill lay a row of the Gordons,
bloody and stiff, their Major, Miller-Wallnutt, at their head,
conspicuous by his size. The bodies of the Rifles were being collected.
Some still lay curled up and twisted among the dripping rocks. Slowly
the waggons were packed and sent off to the place of burial.

The broad path up the hill and the tracks along the top were stained
with blood. It lay in sticky pools, which even the rain could not wash
out. It was easy to see where the dead had fallen. Most had lain behind
some rock to fire and there met their end. On the summit some Kaffirs
were skinning eight oxen which had been spanned to the "Lady Anne's"
platform, and stood immovable during the fight. Four had been shot in
the action, the others had just been killed as rations. Passing to the
further edge where the Boers crept up I saw a Boer ambulance and an
ox-waggon waiting. Bearded Boers in their slouch hats stood round them
with an English doctor from Harrismith, commandeered to serve. Our men
were carrying the Boer wounded and dead down the steep slope. The dead
were laid out in line, and put in the ox-waggon. At that time there were
seventeen of them waiting, but eight others were still on the hill, and
I found them where they fell. Most were grey-bearded men, rough old
farmers, with wrinkled and kindly faces, hardened by a grand life in sun
and weather. They were dressed in flannel shirts, rough old jackets of
brown cloth, rough trousers with braces, weather-stained slouch hats,
and every variety of boot. Only a few had socks. Some wore the yellow
"veldt-shoes," some were bare-footed; their boots had probably been
taken. They lay