ight flank or cut off his line of retreat in the direction of Van
Reenan's Pass. For either purpose, two battalions of infantry, though
they might be the bravest and the best, with a mountain-battery of
7-pounders carried on mules, did not seem quite adequate, but Major
Adye, of the Royal Irish Rifles, who acted as staff-officer guiding the
column, was confident of success, and glad of the chance to be with two
such battalions as the Royal Irish Fusiliers and the Gloucesters in such
an enterprise.

Possibly all might have gone well with it but for a deplorable accident.
In the dead of night some boulders rolling down from a hill startled the
transport and mountain-battery mules, which stampeded, taking with them
nearly all the reserve rifle ammunition. As to what happened after that,
accounts vary greatly. Few of the Gloucester men or Royal Irish
Fusiliers got back to tell the story, except as wounded men on parole,
and they had not seen the whole thing through. It seems certain,
however, from concordance of evidence, that the Gloucesters and
Fusiliers, instead of outflanking the Boers, were actually between two
strong bodies of Free State men, when they seized a strong position and
established themselves there. At any rate, they were attacked in turn
soon after daybreak by Boers who crept up the slopes in rear, firing on
them from both flanks--some say all round. Notwithstanding this, the
thousand men held their ground against odds until nearly every round of
ammunition had been expended, and the casualties numbered nearly a
hundred and fifty killed or wounded.

Both regiments begged that they might be allowed to charge the rough
slopes from which the ceaseless stings of rifle-fire came, and the
Fusiliers, whose colonel would have led them willingly enough, had their
bayonets fixed, when some one hoisted the white flag, and by this act
the remnants of two gallant regiments became prisoners of war. "Flags of
truce!" said an "old brag" who recounted the story, with tears in his
voice; "I wish they would leave the damned rags at home, or dye them all
khaki colour, so that neither Dutchmen nor us could ever see them."

News of that disaster travelled fast. It was told on the battlefield in
front of Ladysmith two hours later, and it probably had some effect on
the fortunes of a fight that cannot be recalled by Englishmen with
unmixed satisfaction. The result may be regarded as a drawn battle, in
that each side remained at