It Was In This Long And Successful Struggle To
Cover The Flank Of The 3rd Brigade That Major Milton, Major Ray,
And Many Another Brave Man Met His End.
The Coldstreams and
Grenadiers relieved the pressure upon this side, and the Lancers
retired to their horses, having shown, not for the first time, that
the cavalryman with a modern carbine can at a pinch very quickly
turn himself into a useful infantry soldier.
Lord Airlie deserves
all praise for his unconventional use of his men, and for the
gallantry with which he threw both himself and them into the most
critical corner of the fight.
While the Coldstreams, the Grenadiers, and the Yorkshire Light
Infantry were holding back the Boer attack upon our right flank the
indomitable Gordons, the men of Dargai, furious with the desire to
avenge their comrades of the Highland Brigade, had advanced
straight against the trenches and succeeded without any very great
loss in getting within four hundred yards of them. But a single
regiment could not carry the position, and anything like a general
advance upon it was out of the question in broad daylight after the
punishment which we had received. Any plans of the sort which may
have passed through Lord Methuen's mind were driven away for ever
by the sudden unordered retreat of the stricken brigade. They had
been very roughly handled in this, which was to most of them their
baptism of fire, and they had been without food and water under a
burning sun all day.
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