Hour after hour this terrible retreat continued, both officers and privates staggering, weary, footsore, exhausted, along, expecting each moment to find that the enemy had intercepted them. But the enemy showed the usual Boer want of enterprise, and was content merely to fire shell from the 40-pounder, which for the most part did not burst. At last, more than thirty hours after their start, the dejected troops straggled back into Molteno. In some degree they were covered for the last mile or two of their retreat by an armoured train, which had advanced towards Stormberg during the fighting, and which had barely escaped derailment and capture. The fish-plates of the rails were seen to have been removed some few yards beyond the place where the train halted, and a Boer gun was observed trained in readiness to play upon the wreck. [Sidenote: DEC. 10, 1899.] _Compassionate Townspeople._] [Sidenote: The return to Molteno.] A private who was in the battle gives this account of the retreat:--"The hills were unscalable, and after fighting for nearly six hours we had the order to retire as well as we were able, leaving most of our wounded and killed behind, as the Boers were working round to cut us off as we were retiring. We got into Molteno with about forty-six wounded men about five o'clock at night, after being on the march for about twenty-two hours. The poor fellows were dropping by dozens along the road with sunstroke and exhaustion all the way along, but it made up for all when we got to Molteno. The people were waiting for us with tea, bread and butter, and everything we could wish for, and we were glad of it, too, as no man or beast had had anything to eat or drink, except what we had in our water-bottles, from the time we started till we returned. Directly the Boers saw a stretcher party go to pick a man up they fired volleys into them. No one blames General Gatacre for getting into the trap; everyone is willing to stick to him and go up and have another go at the brutes. I saw one Maxim gun and about forty men of theirs go up with one shell of ours. They must have lost ten times more than us." [Illustration: BACK IN MOLTENO: THE TOWNSPEOPLE GIVING REFRESHMENTS TO THE TROOPS.] Great disaster as was the battle of Stormberg, it was in no way dishonourable to the private soldier or subaltern officer. These had fought gallantly and stubbornly; they failed not from any want of courage or devotion, but because the task set them was beyond the strength of man. Brave in the advance, they were cool and deliberate in the retreat. In the military qualities of the common Englishman there had been no decline since the great days of the past, and this battle proved it. [Sidenote: [DEC. 10, 1899.] [Sidenote: British losses.]