One company of mounted infantry (that of the Rifles) had been told off to form an escort for the guns.  The rest of the mounted infantry with part of the 18th Hussars (Colonel Moller) had moved round the right flank until they reached the right rear of the enemy.  Such a movement, had Lucas Meyer been the only opponent, would have been above criticism; but knowing, as we did, that there were several commandoes converging upon Glencoe it was obviously taking a very grave and certain risk to allow the cavalry to wander too far from support.  They were soon entangled in broken country and attacked by superior numbers of the Boers.  There was a time when they might have exerted an important influence upon the action by attacking the Boer ponies behind the hills, but the opportunity was allowed to pass.  An attempt was made to get back to the army, and a series of defensive positions were held to cover the retreat, but the enemy’s fire became too hot to allow them to be retained.  Every route save one appeared to be blocked, so the horsemen took this, which led them into the heart of a second commando of the enemy.  Finding no way through, the force took up a defensive position, part of them in a farm and part on a kopje which overlooked it.

The party consisted of two troops of Hussars, one company of mounted infantry of the Dublin Fusiliers, and one section of the mounted infantry of the Rifles—­about two hundred men in all.  They were subjected to a hot fire for some hours, many being killed and wounded.  Guns were brought up, and fired shell into the farmhouse.  At 4.30 the force, being in a perfectly hopeless position, laid down their arms.  Their ammunition was gone, many of their horses had stampeded, and they were hemmed in by very superior numbers, so that no slightest slur can rest upon the survivors for their decision to surrender, though the movements which brought them to such a pass are more open to criticism.  They were the vanguard of that considerable body of humiliated and bitter-hearted men who were to assemble at the capital of our brave and crafty enemy.  The remainder of the 18th Hussars, who under Major Knox had been detached from the main force and sent across the Boer rear, underwent a somewhat similar experience, but succeeded in extricating themselves with a loss of six killed and ten wounded.  Their efforts were by no means lost, as they engaged the attention of a considerable body of Boers during the day and were able to bring some prisoners back with them.

The battle of Talana Hill was a tactical victory but a strategic defeat.  It was a crude frontal attack without any attempt at even a feint of flanking, but the valour of the troops, from general to private, carried it through.  The force was in a position so radically false that the only use which they could make of a victory was to cover their own retreat.  From all points Boer commandoes were converging upon it, and already it was understood that the guns at