There Van der Merwe died.
The boy had already been relieved from his sufferings.

Thus, once again, the soil drank the blood of a child.
Eleven of my men were left dead on the battlefield.

We had to leave them there, for to recover their bodies might have meant the sacrifice of more lives.
When the burghers and I forced our way through the storm of bullets, we had with us President Steyn, the Members of the Government, and the Rev.
D.Kestell, minister of the Dutch Reformed Church at Harrismith.
The greater part of the English, indeed all of them, so far as we could observe, remained, during the 24th, on the spot where we had left them.
We found out, later on, that we had broken through their lines at the point where Colonel Rimington's force was stationed.
The following day the columns departed.

We then went to bury our dead, but found that the enemy had already done so.

But as the graves which they had made were very shallow, we dug them deeper.
During that night (the 25th) another force of burghers, to the number of about three hundred and fifty, broke through the English cordon.