Thus the battle had been fought and had issued in a complete check to Lord Methuen's division. The Highland Brigade had temporarily ceased to exist as a fighting force; its shaken and demoralised soldiers needed to be strengthened by rest and drafts of fresh men before they could again be sent into action. "I do not hesitate to admit that for months after Mars-la-Tour," says a German officer, who had passed through an ordeal as terrible as that to which the Highland Brigade was subjected, "the effects of the fire remained on my nerves. Troops that have to undergo anything of the kind are demoralised for a long time--not only rank and file, but officers as well." The subtle force known as _morale,_ which is the mark of the good soldier, had been exhausted by the nervous strain of that night and day of continuous fighting. [Illustration: _F. J. Waugh._] REMOVING THE WOUNDED, BLINDFOLD. The British stretcher-bearers, during the truce at Magersfontein, were not allowed to see the Boer defences; they were led along the lines blindfold.] The losses of the Brigade were, in detail, as follows, according to Mr. Ralph:-- Killed. Wounded. Missing Total. and Prisoners. Staff 1 2 0 3 2nd Black Watch 73 208 73 354 2nd Seaforths 48 141 8 197 1st Highland Light Infantry 15 77 3 95 1st Argyll and Sutherlands 26 61 19 106 --- --- --- --- 163 489 103 755 --- --- --- --- [Sidenote: [DEC. 12, 1899.] As each battalion would not muster more than 750 or 800 men present and fit for duty, it follows that about one fourth of the Brigade was put out of action. The Black Watch was by far the worst sufferer; it lost nearly half its strength, the Seaforths about one quarter, and the other two battalions each about one eighth. The Boers took sixty-nine unwounded prisoners of the Brigade--a gallant little party, which had actually fought its way into their trenches, and had there been overwhelmed by numbers. They captured ten wounded men and buried fifteen whose names are not known. Of the prisoners they had taken, no less than forty-two were, through some error, reported to have been killed; their relatives were notified accordingly, and it was not till some weeks afterwards that the mistake was corrected, and that these men, so to say, came back from the dead.