The action continued all day, and eventually, on the approach of the 9th Lancers, the Boers fell back and the Highland Brigade returned to the Modder River, having lost some fifty men. There followed afterwards the relief of Kimberley, and from thence onwards to the end of the war the part taken by the Highlanders was peculiarly arduous and without many distinguished features. Month after month they were employed in hard marching, holding positions that the mounted troops had carried, uncomplaining as always, and winning back here and there some of the losses that they had suffered at the hands of the enemy at Magersfontein. We have seen how the Gordons were instrumental in the capture of Cronje, despite the heavy fire with which they were met from the Boer trenches, and it is a notable fact that the Highland Brigade, for all their handling at Magersfontein, appear to have suffered in no way in prestige, and were only too anxious to make good. “On the 18th,” says General Colville, speaking of the end of Cronje, “the courage and determination shown by the Highland Brigade in their advance over some fifteen hundred yards of perfectly open plain, and their passage of the river, both under heavy fire, are beyond all praise.” CHAPTER XXVII WITH SIR IAN HAMILTON TO PRETORIA (1900) To you who know the face of war, You, that for England wander far, You that have seen the Ghazis fly From English lads not sworn to die, You that have lain, where, deadly chill, The mist crept o’er the Shameful Hill, You that have conquered, mile by mile, The currents of unfriendly Nile, And cheered the march, and eased the strain When Politics made valour vain, Ian, to you from banks of Ken, We send our lays of Englishmen! ANDREW LANG. It was during the halt at Bloemfontein that the Highland Brigade received reinforcements from home, and no praise could be too high for the volunteers who formed additional companies to the regiments of the regular forces. To-day, when thousands and hundreds of thousands are trained soldiers who a year ago had never held a rifle in their hands, it would be futile to belaud the qualities of the amateur soldier. But until the Boer War no one had taken unprofessional soldiers very seriously. Just as the Territorials won the esteem of the Regulars in Flanders, so the companies of Volunteers earned the admiration and gratitude of the country in the Boer War.