ntinuing the
pursuit, some were seeking their units; many were resting; the cross
fire which thus assailed them was severe and accurate.

[Sidenote: The enemy is swept off.]

But the effect of this counter-attack was but momentary. Once more the
"advance" was sounded, and that part of the line, rallied by the voice
and example of Colonel Hamilton himself, surged forward again,[120]
and tumbled the last remnant of the enemy down the reverse slopes.
During this incident some of the Imperial Light Horse on the extreme
right, swinging round the enemy's left, surrounded a farmhouse which
had been the rallying point of the above counter-attack, and, after a
sharp encounter, stormed it, capturing twenty-one prisoners.

[Footnote 120: For conspicuous gallantry in rallying their
men for this advance the following officers received the
Victoria Cross:--Captain M. F. M. Meiklejohn, Gordon
Highlanders, whose wound on the occasion deprived him of an
arm, and Captains C. H. Mullins and R. Johnstone, of the
Imperial Light Horse. Sergt.-Major W. Robertson, Gordon
Highlanders, was also awarded the Victoria Cross.]

[Sidenote: Effect of the action.]

Thus terminated an action of which there can be no greater praise than
that it was swiftly planned, carried out with determination, and that
its complete success was gained exactly as designed. That success,
moreover, was of more than local importance. Kock's hold upon the
communications of Dundee had been of the briefest. He himself was a
prisoner, mortally wounded, in British hands, and his force, rushing
headlong back to Newcastle from the battlefield, upon which it had
left over two hundred killed and wounded, nearly two hundred
prisoners, two guns and a complete laager, carried despondency into
the Boer Headquarters, so recently alarmed at the rebuff of Talana.
Moreover, the battle did more than clear Yule's rear; it also
safeguarded his front, by persuading Erasmus, already timorous upon
Impati, to cling to his mountain, at a time when Yule's exhausted
battalions were in no condition to resist the attack of 5,000 fresh
enemies.

[Sidenote: French is recalled to Ladysmith.]

It formed no part of Sir G. White's plan to keep the ground that had
been won. The position of Elandslaagte was useless alike for
observation, defence, or offence. Even had it been of value, the
presence of the Free State army upon its flank ren