Hour after hour the fierce, monotonous battle continued, while the pitiless sun waxed higher and higher, and at last began to decline. Always the British field artillery kept its position in the open, its gunners working like demons to save their comrades and shake the enemy's nerves. Always the tempests of bullets passed, for the most part innocuous, over the prone infantry. Always the enemy's rifles crackled and his guns pounded and banged. As the day went on the extreme tension and anxiety yielded to utter lassitude. The nerves could accept no fresh impression, and in the infernal uproar whole ranks were seen sleeping peacefully. Some were even killed or wounded as they slept. As time went on and our men could make no advance and gain no ground, matters began to look more serious. Would twelve guns ever be able to dominate and silence the fire of so strongly entrenched an enemy? To outward appearances but little impression had been made. The Boer guns often seemed to have been silenced, but after intervals of quietude would always reappear and open in another place. Yet the persistent roar of guns behind them cheered and reassured the British infantry, and the persistent rain of shrapnel, though no one in our army knew it, was beginning to weaken the resolution of the Free Staters in the foremost trenches. About noon, it is said, some were shot by their own side for attempting to bolt. And now, as the afternoon wore on, came much-needed help. The 62nd Field Battery, after a twenty-five miles' march, in which four of the horses had fallen dead, dashed upon the field and opened on the Boer left. Says an officer of the battery:—"Things were looking very black when Lord Methuen came up to our Colonel and asked him to send his batteries up closer (we were then 1,500 yards from the Boer trenches, and you must understand that a rifle carries 2,500 yards). Our Colonel did. We then advanced up past our own infantry, and came into action about 900 yards off, closer than artillery had ever taken up position before. After severe loss on our side we managed to silence the Boer guns. The order was then given to retire, and we got out of range and were on the point of congratulating ourselves on being so lucky, when up rode an orderly giving us instructions to go and relieve the Guards. Our Major advanced.... We took up our position 800 yards from the Boer trenches, and, by Jove! the Boers let us have a fearful reception. Before I got my horses out they shot one of my drivers and two horses ... and brought down my own horse. We then got my gun round on the enemy, when one of my gunners was shot through the brain and fell at my feet. Another of my gunners was shot whilst bringing up shell, and I began to feel queer.... At last we had a look in, and our shells began to tell; we were firing six rounds a minute, and were at it until it was too dark to fire any more."

Lord Methuen had ridden over in the afternoon from the right to the left. On the right a desperate attempt to cross the Riet and get at the enemy had just failed. Colonel Codrington had led a party of Coldstreams, twenty-four men strong, across the river, but they missed the ford and had to swim for it. When they reached the other side they found themselves unsupported and exposed to a concentrated fire, so that there was nothing for it but retreat. Two of the party were all but drowned, when the others, unfastening their putties, made long lines of them and threw them to the exhausted men. It is pleasant to relate that all of this brave little band regained the British lines.

On the left several attempts had been made by the Ninth Brigade, splendidly led by General Pole-Carew, to cross the river, the approach to which had been secured by the Yorkshires and Lancashires. These two battalions stormed a farmhouse and a kraal just to the south of the dam, though the Boers were present in force. Several of the enemy were bayoneted in the mêlée about the house. Further to the left a line of low kopjes was captured at the point of the bayonet, and the British left was firmly based on the river.

The first attempt to cross was made by the Yorkshiremen, a few of whom pushed into the stream above the dam. They were led by Lord Methuen in person. But the fire was too hot for anything to live under it, and the detachment was driven back with heavy loss, Lord Methuen himself receiving a painful flesh wound which compelled him to hand over the command. Next, a company of the Highlanders forded or swam the river and reached the further bank, where, on the following day, five of the bravest were found dead in the enemy's trenches. The others were driven back. Once more General Pole-Carew led the brave Yorkshiremen forward, this time to the dam that crossed the river. Here, under a heavy fire, the men one by one made their way along a rickety iron bar in the water just over the sluices, clinging to the uprights in which slid the sluice gates. One by one, in spite of the fire, they gained the other side, where gradually 400 men formed up—a band of heroes—and began to push forward along the north bank to take the enemy in the flank. General Pole-Carew sent for reinforcements. Colonel Northcott, of the staff, was directed by Lord Methuen to bring them up, but, before he could reach General Pole-Carew, fell mortally wounded by a shell splinter in the neck.

Unfortunately, the success of this flanking movement was not generally known, and the Yorkshiremen were taken for Boers, so that our troops and batteries, as well as the enemy's, fired upon them. This compelled them to fall back, but their mere appearance on the north bank had finally upset the equanimity of the Free Staters. These had no confidence in themselves or in their leaders; many of them were for the first time under fire, and the fearful sights of the battlefield shook their equilibrium. Most terrible of all was a tall red-bearded Boer who had been wounded fearfully by a shell, and walked to and fro, his whole face one mass of blood, his eyes torn out, calling frantically to his comrades. At 2 p.m. a large number of the enemy were seen to ride off towards Jacobsdal; at 4·0 there was something resembling a general stampede. The fugitives retired along the deep river bed, and thus their flight escaped the notice of the British column, else the attack might have been pushed, when there is every reason to think a great victory would have been obtained and the enemy's artillery captured. But the most advanced companies of the Guards' Brigade had no ammunition left and none could be sent them; moreover, as it was impossible for a mounted man to show himself within 1,500 yards from the Boer trenches, no orders could be given. It was, therefore, decided to move three battalions of the Guards under cover of night across the river to the left and to storm the position, and till nightfall to rest content with what had been won.

As evening drew on and the sun sank, the long duel ceased, after eight hours of continual firing, with only two short intervals of abatement. At this point, unknown to the British, the remainder of the enemy precipitately retreated, leaving behind them their guns and many of their wounded. Late in the night they mustered up courage to return and remove all that they had left. The British, for their part, bivouacked on the field, the men sleeping where they had fought. The night was bitterly cold after the sweltering heat of the day, and this, in the absence of their great-coats, caused the men great suffering.

When morning came, eight shots from the naval 12-pounders gave the signal for a forward move. The scouts and patrols, however, on cautiously advancing towards the Boer lines, found them abandoned. The British army then pushed rapidly across and seized the position vacated by the enemy—victors in one of the strangest battles of modern times.

In view of the terrific nature of the Boer fire the British losses were by no means heavy. Four officers and sixty-six men were killed, twenty officers and 393 men were wounded, of whom thirty-one died of their wounds, and two were missing—it is to be feared drowned in valiant efforts to cross the river. This made a total of 485 casualties in a total force which at the close of the battle mustered over 9,000. Therefore the British losses were a little over five per cent. It is impossible to do more than guess at the Boer casualties; probably they were much less than ours, inasmuch as the enemy was the defending force and quite invisible; sixty killed and 300 wounded will be about the truth. It was said, indeed, by prisoners and non-combatants that the Boers lost 160 in killed alone, but this figure is wholly conjectural and very untrustworthy. Their official accounts only acknowledged the loss of seventeen killed and wounded among the Transvaalers, which was certainly an absurd underestimate. The son of the Boer General Delarey was among those placed hors de combat.

Though the battle of the Modder River was not in any sense a great victory, it was a victory extremely creditable to the stubbornness and fighting qualities of the British soldier and to the resolute determination of the much decried British general. To dislodge from the strongest possible entrenchments a force which was at least equal, and perhaps superior in strength, to the British division, which was composed of brave, self-reliant marksmen, mounted, and so without fear for their line of retreat, and which was in artillery quite as strong as Lord Methuen, was a most brilliant feat of arms.

The British artillery especially distinguished itself by the rapidity and accuracy of its fire. Yet there were times when a quicker-firing gun would have been invaluable, especially in preparing for the rushes across the river. As it was, the four naval guns fired 514 rounds; the 18th Battery no less than 1,100; the 75th 900; and the 62nd, which came late, 500. In all, 3,000 projectiles of twelve and fifteen pounds weight were poured upon the Boer trenches.

Lord Methuen has been blamed for failing to attempt a flanking attack, when he did discover the real strength and position of the enemy. But, as we have seen, the discovery was made too late to permit of the withdrawal of any considerable force, and the confusion caused by such a movement might well have been seized by the enemy for a counter-attack. Three times during the battle the young bloods among the Transvaalers pressed Cronje to permit them to deliver such an attack, believing that our men were demoralised. Three times he refused.

What rendered the battle so severe an ordeal to the nerves was the new conditions under which it was fought. Tempests of bullets suddenly descended—no one could say from what quarter. Throughout, the enemy was invisible even to the best field glasses, and this more than anything filled the soldiery with despair of coming to hand-grips—the one kind of battle for which they had been taught to prepare. The new weapons, especially the 1-pounder Maxim, created a terrible impression. In short, the British troops were tried upon this eventful day in the rudest manner. Unhappily, the battle produced a feeling of deep depression in Lord Methuen's army, where the soldiers did not realise how much they had achieved. If a rapid advance on the 29th had been possible, it is certain that Cronje and his army would have been driven back helter-skelter. But the mischief of undertaking a difficult campaign with inadequate forces now manifested itself. No large body of reinforcements was available to carry Lord Methuen's division forward with a rush. There was no cavalry brigade, no horse artillery battery to turn the enemy's entrenchments. Moreover the batteries with the column had not sufficient ammunition for another action, and a halt was imperatively needed to replenish limbers and waggons from the none-too-extensive supplies at the base. In the days of delay which followed the battle, all the results of the victory were lost.

An examination of the Boer trenches revealed the terrible effectiveness of the British artillery fire. The walls and roofs of the houses in the village were wrecked; iron outbuildings were so perforated with rifle and shrapnel bullets that they resembled gigantic colanders; the enemy's trenches were ploughed up by the shells and bullets. About fifty dead Boers were found on the field, either lying where they had fallen or hastily buried. Their trenches were full of all kinds of débris; amidst thousands and thousands of expended cartridges were rifles, bandoliers, bottles of Bass, mackintoshes, and odds and ends of equipment. Hundreds of riderless horses galloped over the field. They were captured by privates and sold for a few shillings or a handful of cigarettes.

There were many abuses of the customs of war. The Boers fired upon stretcher bearers and trained their "Pom-Pom" upon the ambulances. They employed expanding bullets, and are said, though the story wants corroboration, to have placed one of their guns in a place where it was sheltered by the red cross flag, flying over a neighbouring hospital, and to have removed a Maxim in an ambulance.

The conduct of the Free Staters in the battle roused the fierce resentment of Cronje and the Transvaalers. But for these recreants, they said, the British Army must have been driven back. They communicated to President Kruger the news of their allies' cowardice, and he in turn complained to Mr. Steyn in these terms:—

"It was with regret that we learned that only about 1,000 men of the Free State fought in the last battle, and that many of the others remained in their camps, while their brothers resisted, and even defeated, their enemy. I should not be performing my duty were I not to impress upon you all the fact that such behaviour can only lead to disastrous results for our liberty as a people, and may have most unfortunate results for our brothers in the strife.

"I must, therefore, impress upon each and everyone that it is his especial duty to obey the officers in command, and that the officers should accompany the burghers throughout the battles. If we act in this way, I have no doubt but that the God of our fathers, and our God, will not forsake us, but give us the victory. So let not one be found out of his place at the next engagement. Let each one be found taking his part in the strife. We must remember that we are fighting for all that is dear to us."

On December 2, Mr. Steyn came in person to Jacobsdal to ply his reluctant burghers with exhortations. He brought with him a special message from Mr. Kruger, in which the Transvaal President expressed his own wish to come to the front and fight. "My age," he said, "does not permit me to join my sons, otherwise I should have been at the front by this time. Your Honour's directions and advice must be before them continuously. For the decisive struggle is fast approaching which is to prove whether or not we shall surrender the country. By no means must we give up the country, even if it costs us half of our men. Your Honour must impress upon the officers and burghers that they must resist to the death. In the name of the Lord, with this determination, and with a prayerful attack, I have confidence that we shall secure the victory. For Christ has said, 'Whosoever would keep his life shall lose it, but whosoever would lose it for truth's sake shall keep it.'"

With Mr. Fischer, President Steyn addressed the men and visited the hospitals.