So far the British had succeeded in driving and injuring, but never in destroying, the Boer bands.  It was a new departure therefore when, upon September 4th, the commando of Lotter was entirely destroyed by the column of Scobell.  This column consisted of some of the Cape Mounted Rifles and of the indefatigable 9th Lancers.  It marked the enemy down in a valley to the west of Cradock and attacked them in the morning, after having secured all the approaches.  The result was a complete success.  The Boers threw themselves into a building and held out valiantly, but their position was impossible, and after enduring considerable punishment they were forced to hoist the white flag.  Eleven had been killed, forty-six wounded, and fifty-six surrendered—­figures which are in themselves a proof of the tenacity of their defence.  Lotter was among the prisoners, 260 horses were taken, and a good supply of ammunition, with some dynamite.  A few days later, on September 10th, a similar blow, less final in its character, was dealt by Colonel Crabbe to the commando of Van der Merve, which was an offshoot of that of Scheepers.  The action was fought near Laingsburg, which is on the main line, just north of Matjesfontein, and it ended in the scattering of the Boer band, the death of their boy leader (he was only eighteen years of age), and the capture of thirty-seven prisoners.  Seventy of the Beers escaped by a hidden road.  To Colonials and Yeomanry belongs the honour of the action, which cost the British force seven casualties.  Colonel Crabbe pushed on after the success, and on September 14th he was in touch with Scheepers’s commando near Ladismith (not to be confused with the historical town of Natal), and endured and inflicted some losses.  On the 17th a patrol of Grenadier Guards was captured in the north of the Colony, Rebow, the young lieutenant in charge of them, meeting with a soldier’s death.

On the same day a more serious engagement occurred near Tarkastad, a place which lies to the east of Cradock, a notorious centre of disaffection in the midland district.  Smuts’s commando, some hundreds strong, was marked down in this part, and several forces converged upon it.  One of the outlets, Elands River Poort, was guarded by a single squadron of the 17th Lancers.  Upon this the Boers made a sudden and very fierce attack, their approach being facilitated partly by the mist and partly by the use of khaki, a trick which seems never to have grown too stale for successful use.  The result was that they were able to ride up to the British camp before any preparations had been made for resistance, and to shoot down a number of the Lancers before they could reach their horses.  So terrible was the fire that the single squadron lost thirty-four killed and thirty-six wounded.  But the regiment may console itself for the disaster by the fact that the sorely stricken detachment remained true to the spirited motto of the corps, and that no prisoners appear to have been lost.