Their retreat was gallantly covered by their comrades, who swept the ridge with an oblique fire from both sides.
The Devons, edging a little to the right in their charge, got some cover from a low wall near the "nek" just quitted by the Boers.

Even there the danger was terrible.

It was there that four officers fell, three stone dead.

It will be long before such officers as Lafone (already twice wounded in this war) and Field can be replaced.

Lieutenant Masterson, formerly a private, and later a colour-sergeant in the Irish Fusiliers, was ordered back over the exposed space cleared by the first charge to bring up a small reinforcement further on the left.