They had the stronger motive for holding out, as they had taken steps to convey word of their difficulty to Colvile and to Methuen.  The former continued his march to Heilbron, and it is hard to blame him for doing so, but Methuen on hearing the message, which was conveyed to him at great personal peril by Corporal Hankey of the Yeomanry, pushed on instantly with the utmost energy, though he arrived too late to prevent, or even to repair, a disaster.  It must be remembered that Colvile was under orders to reach Heilbron on a certain date, that he was himself fighting his way, and that the force which he was asked to relieve was much more mobile than his own.  His cavalry at that date consisted of 100 men of the Eastern Province Horse.

Colonel Spragge’s men had held their own for the first three days of their investment, during which they had been simply exposed to a long-range rifle fire which inflicted no very serious loss upon them.  Their principal defence consisted of a stone kraal about twenty yards square, which sheltered them from rifle bullets, but must obviously be a perfect death-trap in the not improbable event of the Boers sending for artillery.  The spirit of the troopers was admirable.  Several dashing sorties were carried out under the leadership of Captain Humby and Lord Longford.  The latter was a particularly dashing business, ending in a bayonet charge which cleared a neighbouring ridge.  Early in the siege the gallant Keith met his end.  On the fourth day the Boers brought up five guns.  One would have thought that during so long a time as three days it would have been possible for the officer in command to make such preparations against this obvious possibility as were so successfully taken at a later stage of the war by the handful who garrisoned Ladybrand.  Surely in this period, even without engineers, it would not have been hard to construct such trenches as the Boers have again and again opposed to our own artillery.  But the preparations which were made proved to be quite inadequate.  One of the two smaller kopjes was carried, and the garrison fled to the other.  This also was compelled to surrender, and finally the main kopje also hoisted the white flag.  No blame can rest upon the men, for their presence there at all is a sufficient proof of their public spirit and their gallantry.  But the lessons of the war seem to have been imperfectly learned, especially that very certain lesson that shell fire in a close formation is insupportable, while in an open formation with a little cover it can never compel surrender.  The casualty lists (80 killed and wounded out of a force of 470) show that the Yeomanry took considerable punishment before surrendering, but do not permit us to call the defence desperate or heroic.  It is only fair to add that Colonel Spragge was acquitted of all blame by a court of inquiry, which agreed, however, that the surrender was premature, and attributed it to the unauthorised hoisting of a white flag upon one of the detached kopjes.  With regard to the subsequent controversy as to whether General Colvile might have returned to the relief of the Yeomanry, it is impossible to see how that General could have acted in any other way than he did.