six o’clock.  Sent forward with a message to the Light Horse, he was looking through glasses over a rock when the bullet took him.  While I write he is still alive, but given up.  A finer fellow never lived.  “You’d never take him for a lord,” said an Irish sergeant, “he seems quite a nice gentleman.”  Equally sad was the loss of Colonel Dick-Cunyngham, of the Gordons.  A spent bullet struck him in the back as he was leaving camp.  The wound is mortal, and he had only just recovered from his wound at Elands Laagte.

So the fight began.  The official estimate of the Boers who gained the top is 600.  Eye-witnesses put the number at anything between 100 and 1,000.  The struggle continued from 3 a.m. till nearly seven at night.  It must be remembered that our men had nothing to eat from five the afternoon before, and got nothing till nine at night.  Twenty-eight hours they were without food, and for about sixteen they were fighting for life and death.  At 4 p.m. a tremendous thunderstorm with rain and hail came on, but the fire never slackened.  The 21st and 67th Batteries were behind the position in front of Range Post, but were unable to give assistance for fear of killing our men.  The 18th Hussars and 5th Dragoon Guards and some 5th Lancers came up dismounted to reinforce, but still the enemy clung to the rocks, and still it was death to creep out on the narrow level of the summit.

It was now evident that the position must be retaken at all costs, or the enemy would hold it all night.  The General sent for three companies of the Devons.  Up they came, tramping through the storm—­that glorious regiment of Western Englishmen.  Colonel Park and four other officers led them on.  It was about six o’clock when they reached the summit.  Keeping well to the left of the “nek,” between the extremity held by the Light Horse and the 60th’s sangar, they took open order under cover of the ridge.  Then came the command to sweep the position with the bayonet.  They fixed, and advanced at the quick till they reached the open.  Then, under a steady hail of bullets, they came on at the double—­180 men, with the steel ready.  Colonel Park himself led them.  The Boers kept up an incessant fire till the line was within fifteen yards.  Then they turned and ran, leaping down the steep face of the hill, and disappearing in the dead ground.  Their retreat was gallantly covered by their comrades, who swept the ridge with an oblique fire from both sides.

The Devons, edging a little to the right in their charge, got some cover from a low wall near the “nek” just quitted by the Boers.  Even there the danger was terrible.  It was there that four officers fell, three stone dead.  It will be long before such officers as Lafone (already twice wounded in this war) and Field can be replaced.  Lieutenant Masterson, formerly a private, and later a colour-sergeant in the Irish Fusiliers, was ordered back over the exposed space cleared by the first charge to bring up a small reinforcement further on the left.  On the way he was shot at least three times, but staggered on and gave his order.  He still survives, and is recommended for the Victoria Cross.  He comes of a fighting Irish stock, and his great-grandfather captured the French Eagle at Barossa in the Peninsular War.  He received his commission for gallantry in Egypt.