On July 11, 1900, the Gordons won their fifth Victoria Cross, and established a record in the history of the Army. An officer who was present has recorded the incident. “The enemy’s position,” he says, “consisted of two long hills, with a ‘nek’ between them about five hundred yards long. In front of, and about six hundred yards away from the nek were two small kopjes. The guns galloped up between these kopjes, which were one hundred and fifty yards apart, and opened fire on the big hill on the right. The Gordons were advancing behind the guns in open order. The guns fired a few shots, and then suddenly the enemy opened fire from the hill on the left, which was only eight hundred and fifty yards away. Very soon fifteen out of the seventeen British gunners were wounded, so that the guns could no longer be worked. The Gordons by this time had reached the kopjes, and were about one hundred yards from the guns, the intervening space being in the enemy’s line of fire. At this moment orders were signalled by the General in the rear, from Lord Roberts at Pretoria, telling General Smith-Dorrien to retire. The Colonel of the Gordons, reluctant to leave the guns to fall into the enemy’s hands, sent up the teams of horses to fetch them, but the Boer bullets were raining around, and two of the horses were shot. Colonel Macbean then shouted for volunteers to fetch in the guns. Captains Younger, Gordon the Adjutant, and Allan called on the few men around. They ran out under heavy fire, and with the greatest difficulty they dragged back the gun along seventy yards of the way, but it would not even then have been saved if three more men had not run out and helped for the remaining thirty yards to the kopje. As it was, one of the men was hit only ten yards from the kopje, but he was got in all right. Captain Allan was now ordered away with his company to the left flank, where they were kept for the rest of the day, but Captain Younger, with several men, ran out to try and save the second gun. It was got in, but not before Captain Younger was shot dead.”[12] This incident is interesting, not only as a record of a gallant feat of arms, but also because this Captain Gordon who won the Victoria Cross was later on to command the Gordons in the present war, and unhappily to fall a prisoner with many of his men. At the end of August Lord Roberts met Buller and French at Belfast. Botha, a very able general, and the future conqueror of German South-West Africa, was beaten at Middelburg, and this defeat added the Transvaal to the British Empire. The news that Kruger had fled to the Portuguese was another disappointment to the enemy, but their determination to resist the British was so strong that they refused to surrender, for a long time carrying on the unequal contest.