A FIERCE FIGHT.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 279, 4 December 1901, Page 3

A FIERCE FIGHT.

SPLENDID BRAVERY. (Por R.M.S. Ventura at Auckland.) San Francisco, Nov. 4. A cable to tho New York Sun from Protoria, dated Novembor 6th, states that its correspondent visited the camp of Benson’s column at Brugspruit and learned details of tho fight at Brakenslaagtc. The story gives ample proof of heroism on the part of tho British mounted troops and artillery, and most resoluto bravery on the part of tho Boers. The fight began with tho sniping of tho British rearguard by the 3rd Mounted Infantry at about 3 o’clock. Colonel Benson, finding the Boers were being reinforced in great numbers, sent back a squadron of Scottish Horse to assist tho rearguard. At tho same time he halted two guns with an escort of one company of Buffs, which took up a position on a low ridge. Major Wools Sampson was sent forward to strike camp. When this was done ho ordered tho Yorkshire Mounted Infantry and Scottish Horse to retire on the guns. The Boers, seeing this movement, dashed forward in a charge of extraordinary vigor. Seven hundred Boers rode full-tilt on tho British line, yelling defiance as they fired from their horses. Tho British troops galloped to meet them, and gained a ridge 2000 yards from tho camp on which Colonel Benson stood with his mountod men in extended formation. In the van tho Scottish Horse held tho right, facing the Boers, and the Yorkshire Mounted Infantry the left. Colonel Benson himself, with his staff and artillerymen, was by the guns. The Boers dashed recklessly on through the oscort compauy of Buffs and gained the hollow within forty yards of the guns. Thero they dismounted, and took cover behind the shouldor of a ridge, although somo continued to fire from horseback. Others crept up and poured a deadly firo upon tho defenders. Colonel Benson fell shot through tho knee. He at once sent a message to Colonol Sampson at tho main camp telling him whero to direct the fire. Major Young, with tho rearmost gun in the British camp, placed his shells beautifully, just over tho ridge. After the defenders of the two foremost guns had all been shot down, this shell firo from tho British camp prevented the Boers advancing to take away tho guns until after dark.

The brunt of the defence of the ridge was borne cruelly by the artillerymen serving the two front guns and by the Scottish Horse, and by the Yorkshire Mounted Infantry, besides Colonel Benson and a personal staff of 160 men on the ridge. The British had 120 casualties. The Scottish Horse had 73 hit out of 80, and the artillerymen 28 out of 32. The companies of the Yorkshire Mounted Infantry also had a terrible proportion of men killed an

id wounded. Of five officers, four were killed. Colonel Benson, Lieutenant-Colonel Guinness, Captains Murray-Lindsay and Herold all fell dead. Guinness fired his last shot from beside the guns, and then fell back dead, riddled .with bullets. A trooper of the Scottish Horse named Grierson, who was not wounded, remained to the last beside Colonel Benson, hoping to get a message from the commander to take him back to camp. When the Colonel was mortally hit, and most of the troopers wounded, the resistance weakened, there being few at hand to resist the Boers. Just before ho died Colonel Benson sent for Major Wools Sampson and said, “ Defend your camp for all it is worth. Louis Botha has said he will attack you in she morning fourteen hundred strong unless you surrender.” The men in the British camp entrenched iheir line during the night, and in the morning their position was impregnable. -