The scouting appears to have been negligently done, there being only two men out upon each flank.  The little force walked into one of those horse-shoe positions which the Boers love, and learned by a sudden volley from a kraal upon their right that the enemy was present in strength.  On attempting to withdraw it was instantly evident that the Boers were on all sides and in the rear with a force which numbered at least five to one.  The camp of the main column was only four miles away, however, and the bodyguard, having sent messages of their precarious position, did all they could to make a defence until help could reach them.  Colonel Laing had fallen, shot through the heart, but found a gallant successor in young Nairne, the adjutant.  Part of the force had thrown themselves, under Nairne and Milne, into a donga, which gave some shelter from the sleet of bullets.  The others, under Captain Butters, held on to a ruined kraal.  The Boers pushed the attack very rapidly, however, and were soon able with their superior numbers to send a raking fire down the donga, which made it a perfect death-trap.  Still hoping that the laggard reinforcements would come up, the survivors held desperately on; but both in the kraal and in the donga their numbers were from minute to minute diminishing.  There was no formal surrender and no white flag, for, when fifty per cent of the British were down, the Boers closed in swiftly and rushed the position.  Philip Botha, the brother of the commandant, who led the Boers, behaved with courtesy and humanity to the survivors; but many of the wounds were inflicted with those horrible explosive and expansive missiles, the use of which among civilised combatants should now and always be a capital offence.  To disable one’s adversary is a painful necessity of warfare, but nothing can excuse the wilful mutilation and torture which is inflicted by these brutal devices.

‘How many of you are there?’ asked Botha.  ‘A hundred,’ said an officer.  ’It is not true.  There are one hundred and twenty.  I counted you as you came along.’  The answer of the Boer leader shows how carefully the small force had been nursed until it was in an impossible position.  The margin was a narrow one, however, for within fifteen minutes of the disaster White’s guns were at work.  There may be some question as to whether the rescuing force could have come sooner, but there can be none as to the resistance of the bodyguard.  They held out to the last cartridge.  Colonel Laing and three officers with sixteen men were killed, four officers and twenty-two men were wounded.  The high proportion of fatal casualties can only be explained by the deadly character of the Boer bullets.  Hardly a single horse of the bodyguard was left unwounded, and the profit to the victors, since they were unable to carry away their prisoners, lay entirely in the captured rifles.  It is worthy of record that the British wounded were despatched to Heilbron without guard through the Boer forces.  That they arrived there unmolested is due to the forbearance of the enemy and to the tact and energy of Surgeon-Captain Porter, who commanded the convoy.