their rush.

As it was, the fire came focussed on a mass of men, such a fire as I
suppose has never been seen before, for not only was it a tremendous
volley poured in at point-blank range, but it was a sustained volley;
the rapid action of the magazines enabling the enemy to keep up an
unintermittent hail of bullets on the English column. To advance under
fire of this sort is altogether impossible. It is not a question of
courage, but of the impossibility of a single man surviving. At the
Modder fight our men advanced to a certain distance, but could get no
nearer. They were forced to lie down and remain lying down. The fire of
magazine rifles is such that, unless helped by guns or infinitely the
stronger, the attackers have no chance of getting home. People will keep
on talking as if courage did these things. What the devil's the use of
the bravest man with half-a-dozen bullets through him? It is just as
certain as anything can be that, if the Highlanders had "gone on," in
two minutes not a man would have been left standing. Already in the
brief instant that they stood, dazed by the fire, they lost between six
and seven hundred men. The Black Watch was in front, and nineteen out of
twenty-seven officers were swept down. You might as well talk of "going
on" against a volcano in eruption.

I am writing this on the day after the action in my favourite
lurking-place by the side of the river under the evergreens and big
weeping willows that overhang the sluggish water. Our own small camp is
close to the stream, and here every morning the Highlanders are in the
habit of turning up, usually with much laughing and shouting, to bathing
parade. There is no laughing this morning, only sad, sullen faces,
silence and downcast looks. Still they are glad to talk of it. A few
come under the shade of my tree, and sit about and tell me the little