As it was, the fire came focussed on a mass of men, such a fire as I suppose has never been seen before, for not only was it a tremendous volley poured in at point-blank range, but it was a sustained volley; the rapid action of the magazines enabling the enemy to keep up an unintermittent hail of bullets on the English column.  To advance under fire of this sort is altogether impossible.  It is not a question of courage, but of the impossibility of a single man surviving.  At the Modder fight our men advanced to a certain distance, but could get no nearer.  They were forced to lie down and remain lying down.  The fire of magazine rifles is such that, unless helped by guns or infinitely the stronger, the attackers have no chance of getting home.  People will keep on talking as if courage did these things.  What the devil’s the use of the bravest man with half-a-dozen bullets through him?  It is just as certain as anything can be that, if the Highlanders had “gone on,” in two minutes not a man would have been left standing.  Already in the brief instant that they stood, dazed by the fire, they lost between six and seven hundred men.  The Black Watch was in front, and nineteen out of twenty-seven officers were swept down.  You might as well talk of “going on” against a volcano in eruption.

I am writing this on the day after the action in my favourite lurking-place by the side of the river under the evergreens and big weeping willows that overhang the sluggish water.  Our own small camp is close to the stream, and here every morning the Highlanders are in the habit of turning up, usually with much laughing and shouting, to bathing parade.  There is no laughing this morning, only sad, sullen faces, silence and downcast looks.  Still they are glad to talk of it.  A few come under the shade of my tree, and sit about and tell me the little bit that each saw or heard.  You only get a general impression of chaos.  Some tried to push on, some tried to extend, some lay down, and some ran back out of close range and took up such cover as they could get.  This was, luckily, pretty good, there being a lot of bush and rocks about, and here they gradually crawled together and got into some sort of order, and kept up a counter fire at the Boer position.  The Brigade, however, had been badly shaken, and as hour after hour passed all through the blazing day, and they were kept lying there under the fire of an entrenched enemy, exhausted and parched with thirst, their patience gradually failed, and they made another rush back, but were rallied and led up again to where the Mausers might play on them.  They were not allowed to retire till after five, when all the troops were withdrawn—­that is, until they had been shot over at close range for about fourteen mortal hours.

The Brigade was asked to do too much, and when at last they staggered out of action, the men jumped and started at the rustle of a twig.  It’s a miserable thing when brave men are asked to do more than brave men can do.