One of many sad processions which merged into one long train at the foot of the hill.] [Sidenote: [JAN. 25, 1900.] The Boers placed the strength of the force which assaulted Spion Kop at half that of the total number of British left dead upon the field. That is to say, they pretended that 100 or 150 men dislodged between 4,000 and 5,000 British infantry, who, by even the Boer accounts, displayed remarkable bravery. It is needless to comment upon the story. Were it true, every officer and man who returned from Spion Kop deserved to be condemned as a coward. The evidence is strong that the Boers were numbered, not by the fifty or the hundred, but by thousands. They made their supreme effort in this quarter, and it succeeded. A word of reproach is due for the ghoulish and horrible photographs of the field of battle which the Boer generals allowed to be taken, and which the Boer Government permitted to be paraded in the shops of Pretoria and Johannesburg. [Illustration: 1. Lieut. Otto (wounded). 2. The Hon. J. L. H. Petre (killed). 3. Capt. Knappe (wounded). 4. Lieut. Bosomworth. 5. ---- 6. Lieut. Prettijohn. 7. Dr. Bensusan. 8. Lieut. Steer. 9. ---- 10. Quartermaster Clipman. 11. Lieut. Brown (wounded). 12. Lieut. Martins (wounded). 13. Capt. Bettington (wounded). 14. Col. Thorneycroft. 15. Capt. Morris. 16. Lieut. Sargent. 17. Capt. Hendry. 18. Lieut. Flower-Ellis (missing). 19. Lieut. Jenkins (killed). 20. Lieut. Baldwin (wounded). OFFICERS OF THORNEYCROFT'S MOUNTED INFANTRY. (_Numbered from left to right, and commencing with the back row._)] [Sidenote: Losses in the action.] It is difficult to ascertain exactly what were the losses on this terrible day. The official return lumped together the casualties for the week of battles, which amounted to 27 officers and 245 men killed, 53 officers and 1,050 men wounded, and 7 officers and 351 men missing. The vast proportion of the missing were prisoners, but a few were among the killed. Of the men lost, about 200 were killed and about 500 wounded on Spion Kop. By far the heaviest sufferers were the companies of Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry, which fought with such blind devotion on that blood-stained summit. They went up 194 strong; they returned with only 72 unwounded men. The 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers out of a total of 800 had to mourn a loss of 250, but of these many were prisoners. The Imperial Light Infantry, whose first battle this was, out of 850 men lost 31 killed and 91 wounded or missing. It is typical of the complete disorganisation which the fight produced that the one battalion, the Scottish Rifles, which preserved the best order, could muster only 270 out of 800 men at the foot of the mountain. The reason was, not that its losses were especially heavy, but that in the darkness and confusion no formation could be maintained. [Sidenote: JAN. 25, 1900.] _Stories of the Wounded._]