Considering the incessant fire to which, for some twelve hours, the British troops had been exposed, it is remarkable that our casualties should not have exceeded four hundred and fifty. Of these one hundred and twelve were contributed by the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, and sixty-nine by the Coldstreams. But even to the troops lying helpless all day, the hours had not passed more slowly and painfully than to the cavalry in their enforced inactivity. They had dismounted to ease their horses, and the men and officers of Rimington's Guides stood in little groups ready to mount at a moment's notice. "It is awful," one of the officers said; "it is simply awful! One would think that not a single man exposed to that storm of fire would be found alive at the end of the day. What maddens one is the thought that all this might have been spared us, if we had not blundered into it as if we had been going to a picnic. Why, if only a troop of us had been sent down yesterday afternoon, or early this morning, to reconnoitre, we should have been spared all this. We could have dismounted here and made our way down in very open order, on foot, say fifty yards apart, and pushed on till we got to the willows, and through them to the river bank; or, better still, we could have entered the willows to the right here and searched them thoroughly right round across the railway and as far as the village. "As it turns out, of course, we should have lost three-quarters of our number; but those who got back would have told of the hidden rifle-pits, and the fact that the Boers were gathered there in great force. But somehow, it was taken for granted that there would not be any serious resistance. Even when the troops went forward, there were no scouts pushed out in front of the attacking line. We have just fallen into the trap they set for us. It was the same at Belmont and at Graspan. We only found out where the enemy were in force when they opened a blaze of fire at us. "I was chatting with a private in the infantry, who, before he joined the army, was a volunteer in one of the London battalions, and he told me that when Lord Methuen was in command of the district there was no one more particular than he as to patrols being thrown out far ahead and the ground being thoroughly scouted. He was very popular, for though strict, he was always kind and considerate. As to his bravery there is no question, and the way in which he is exposing himself to-day, galloping about from point to point open to Boer fire, is splendid; but I fancy his staff will be thinned out before the end of the day." "Those fellows must be well in hand," another said, "or they would never have held their fire when he rode up to within four hundred yards of them yesterday. They could have made a certainty of picking him and the two officers with him off at that distance, and if only half a dozen had fired it would have seemed that there might still only be a little party left behind.