The plan of action was based, however, upon one supposition which proved to be fallacious.  It was that after having prepared so elaborate a position the enemy would stop at least a little time to defend it.  Nothing of the sort occurred, however, and on the instant that they realised that the cavalry was on their flank they made off.  The infantry did not fire a shot.

The result of this very decisive flight was to derange all calculations entirely.  The cavalry was not yet in its place when the Boer army streamed off between the kopjes.  One would have thought, however, that they would have had a dash for the wagons and the guns, even if they were past them.  It is unfair to criticise a movement until one is certain as to the positive orders which the leader may have received; but on the face of it it is clear that the sweep of our cavalry was not wide enough, and that they erred by edging to the left instead of to the right, so leaving the flying enemies always to the outside of them.

As it was, however, there seemed every possibility of their getting the guns, but De Wet very cleverly covered them by his skirmishers.  Taking possession of a farmhouse on the right flank they kept up a spirited fire upon the 16th Lancers and upon P battery R.H.A.  When at last the latter drove them out of their shelter, they again formed upon a low kopje and poured so galling a fire upon the right wing that the whole movement was interrupted until we had driven this little body of fifty men from their position.  When, after a delay of an hour, the cavalry at last succeeded in dislodging them—­or possibly it may be fairer to say when, having accomplished their purpose, they retired—­the guns and wagons were out of reach, and, what is more important, the two Presidents, both Steyn and Kruger, who had come to stiffen the resistance of the burghers, had escaped.

Making every allowance for the weary state of the horses, it is impossible to say that our cavalry were handled with energy or judgment on this occasion.  That such a force of men and guns should be held off from an object of such importance by so small a resistance reflects no credit upon us.  It would have been better to repeat the Kimberley tactics and to sweep the regiments in extended order past the obstacle if we could not pass over it.  At the other side of that little ill-defended kopje lay a possible termination of the war, and our crack cavalry regiments manoeuvred for hours and let it pass out of their reach.  However, as Lord Roberts good-humouredly remarked at the end of the action, ’In war you can’t expect everything to come out right.’  General French can afford to shed one leaf from his laurel wreath.  On the other hand, no words can be too high for the gallant little band of Boers who had the courage to face that overwhelming mass of horsemen, and to bluff them into regarding this handful as a force fighting a serious rearguard action.  When the stories of the war are told round the fires in the lonely veld farmhouses, as they will be for a century to come, this one deserves an honoured place.