"There is very little to tell," the other officer said bitterly. "The fact that we were going to make a night attack was known in the camp the night before, and of course the Boers heard of it; and when we arrived at daybreak--after wandering about completely worn out and exhausted by what was really a five or six hours' march, but seemed like a month--a tremendous fire was poured in upon us. Some of us dashed up the hill on one side, some up the other. The place, however, was inaccessible, and we were being shot down without any power to retaliate. The order came to retreat. A great many of us were lying under the shelter of a perpendicular rock, which we could not leave without being exposed to the fire of the Boers above us and those on the opposite side. If the men had been fresh, the effort would have been made, but they were too worn-out and dispirited, and so we were captured. The guns and the Irish Rifles covered the retreat of the rest. But if the Boers had been as enterprising as they were crafty they might have cut the whole off, and not a man would have returned to Molteno to tell the story. "It was a sickening business altogether; we made blunder upon blunder. The order for the march should not have been issued until we were paraded. The troops should have rested all day and taken food with them. The trucks should have been ready for us to entrain when we marched down to the railway. We ought to have had better guides. There ought to have been an advance-guard a quarter of a mile ahead. It was known that the Boer position was strong, and that the enemy were at least as numerous as we were, so we should have been brought up to fight fresh and in good condition, instead of being exhausted, fagged out, and dispirited by a tedious night march. Altogether our business seems to have been very much like yours at Magersfontein, where you were surprised just as we were, and where the men were already exhausted from want of food, a night spent in the pouring rain and a dispiriting night march. I hope to Heaven when the next fight takes place that there will be no more of this night marching, but that the troops will have a chance of going into action fresh, well fed, and in good condition. Even in a flat country, without obstacles, a night march is always a very ticklish business, as you found at Belmont, where, as you say, the regiments lost their bearing and attacked the wrong hills. But in a hilly country, with bad maps and guides of doubtful honesty, it is almost certain to lead to disaster."