The result was that our infantry were compelled to lie prone on
the ground, and, without being able to do much by way of retaliation,
were exposed for hours to a scathing fusilade from the trenches beside
the river. One poor fellow, of whom I saw a good deal, had been through
the battle despite the fact that he was suffering great pain from
dysentery. He, together with two friends, lay on the veldt for no less
than fourteen hours. They had fortunately descried a slight hollow in
the ground some 500 yards from the Boer trenches, and between them they
"loosed off" quite 1,000 rounds of ammunition. "Well," I asked him, "did
you hit anything?" "I don't think we did," was his reply, "because we
never saw a Boer the whole day." When the enemy are firing smokeless
powder behind their splendidly constructed earthworks they are
practically invisible, a fact born witness to by Captain Congreve, V.C.,
in his account of the first reverse at the Tugela. Now of course when
you can't see your enemy you can't very well hit him, so when we clear
our minds of fairy-stories about Lyddite and the universal destruction
wrought by concussion, it seems highly probable that there is much more
truth in the Boers' returns of their casualties than has been believed
at home. Take, _e.g._, the lurid account sent by one of our
correspondents about the awful effects of our shell fire upon General
Cronje's laager.
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