"Well, we among the waggons hadn't a doubt how it was going to turn out.
The one battery with us opened fire upon the entrenchment, but you who
know what their entrenchments are will guess that there was little
damage done; and when the soldiers went up the hill the Boers held their
fire until they were close, and then literally swept them away, and,
leaping over the entrenchments, took many of them prisoners. None would
have got away at all if a few mounted infantry, who had managed to get
up the Nek at another point, hadn't charged down and so enabled the
survivors to escape. One hundred and eighty out of the two hundred and
fifty were killed or taken prisoners. Colley at once fell back four
miles. The Boers on their part, making sure that they had got him safe,
sent a strong force round, and this planted itself on the road between
him and Newcastle, but before they did so some small reinforcements
joined us. Three or four days passed, and then we Colonials quite made
up our mind that there was nothing for it but surrender. Colley
determined at last to try and open the road back, and with about two
hundred and fifty men, with four cannon--two of them mountain guns--
moved out. Some sixty soldiers were left on a commanding spot to cover
the passage of the Ingogo.
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