'What a pity!' was the only utterance which a brother Highlander ascribes to him.

Men went down in swathes, and a howl of rage and agony, heard afar over the veld, swelled up from the frantic and struggling crowd.

By the hundred they dropped--some dead, some wounded, some knocked down by the rush and sway of the broken ranks.

It was a horrible business.

At such a range and in such a formation a single Mauser bullet may well pass through many men.
A few dashed forwards, and were found dead at the very edges of the trench.