The battle, however, was not yet over.  The infantry were few in number, but they were experienced troops, and they maintained the struggle for some hours in the face of overwhelming numbers.  Two hundred of the Northumberland Fusiliers lay round the wagons and held the Boers off from their prey.  With them were the two remaining guns, which were a mark for a thousand Boer riflemen.  It was while encouraging by his presence and example the much-tried gunners of this section that the gallant Methuen was wounded by a bullet which broke the bone of his thigh.  Lieutenant Venning and all the detachment fell with their General round the guns.

An attempt had been made to rally some of the flying troopers at a neighbouring kraal, and a small body of Cape Police and Yeomanry under the command of Major Paris held out there for some hours.  A hundred of the Lancashire Infantry aided them in their stout defence.  But the guns taken by the Boers from Von Donop’s convoy had free play now that the British guns were out of action, and they were brought to bear with crushing effect upon both the kraal and the wagons.  Further resistance meant a useless slaughter, and orders were given for a surrender.  Convoy, ammunition, guns, horses—­nothing was saved except the honour of the infantry and the gunners.  The losses, 68 killed and 121 wounded, fell chiefly upon these two branches of the service.  There were 205 unwounded prisoners.

This, the last Boer victory in the war, reflected equal credit upon their valour and humanity, qualities which had not always gone hand in hand in our experience of them.  Courtesy and attention were extended to the British wounded, and Lord Methuen was sent under charge of his chief medical officer, Colonel Townsend (the doctor as severely wounded as the patient), into Klerksdorp.  In De la Rey we have always found an opponent who was as chivalrous as he was formidable.  The remainder of the force reached the Kimberley to Mafeking railway line in the direction of Kraaipan, the spot where the first bloodshed of the war had occurred some twenty-nine months before.

On Lord Methuen himself no blame can rest for this unsuccessful action.  If the workman’s tool snaps in his hand he cannot be held responsible for the failure of his task.  The troops who misbehaved were none of his training.  ‘If you hear anyone slang him,’ says one of his men, ’you are to tell them that he is the finest General and the truest gentleman that ever fought in this war.’  Such was the tone of his own troopers, and such also that of the spokesmen of the nation when they commented upon the disaster in the Houses of Parliament.  It was a fine example of British justice and sense of fair play, even in that bitter moment, that to hear his eulogy one would have thought that the occasion had been one when thanks were being returned for a victory.  It is a generous public with fine instincts, and Paul Methuen, wounded and broken, still remained in their eyes the heroic soldier and the chivalrous man of honour.