The waggons were at the head of the retiring column, which, as it crossed the plain, had to go through a deep donga. Here the Boers were in hiding. Each waggon as it descended was silently seized. A Boer took the place of the driver, and it ascended the opposite side without any alarm being given. So the whole convoy would have fallen into the hands of the hidden enemy had not one of the troopers with it drawn his pistol and fired. A volley of shots rang out, and the brave fellow paid for his courage with his life. The nine waggons which had not reached the donga halted. The two batteries were close behind them, and, knowing further concealment to be useless, the Boers sprang to their feet and opened a terrible fire on them. Men and horses went down in numbers. The confusion was terrible. The men struggled to get the fallen horses out of the traces, but were mown down by the continuous rain of bullets. The rearmost gun of the leading battery alone was able to get off, and galloped furiously back. Two guns of the second battery were overturned by the struggling horses and had to be abandoned. As soon as the others reached a distance of seven or eight hundred yards from the edge of the donga, they turned and opened fire. Roberts's Horse had been abreast of the guns and suffered heavily also; but they, the New Zealanders, and the Burmese Horse dismounted when they had retired a sufficient distance, and, throwing themselves down, returned the fire of the Boers. Parties of cavalry were sent off to discover some other point at which the donga could be crossed, and one was found two miles to the south by an officer of Rimington's Scouts, and towards this the force moved off. The artillery nobly covered the retreat. But they had suffered terribly. Two of the guns had but two men left to work them, and another was loaded and fired by an officer single-handed; and when at last the order came to fall back, but ten men remained on their legs, and several of these were wounded. The Colonial corps covered the withdrawal by turns, and in two hours the rear of the column had crossed the donga. Some thirty officers and three hundred men were killed, wounded, or missing. A hundred waggons, with seven guns, were lost. Only one officer and the sergeant-major of the leading battery escaped. The other disaster, which was equally serious, occurred four days later, when a detachment of five companies of infantry posted at Reddersburg were surrounded on their march from an advanced position, and took post on a kopje. For twenty-four hours they defended themselves gallantly. But they were without water, the hoped-for relief did not arrive, and they surrendered the next morning. CHAPTER XIX MAFEKING On the 20th of April, Yorke was sent for by Lord Roberts. "I suppose you are almost tired of remaining quiet, Mr. Harberton," he said with a smile.