http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol134ds.html Catastrophe On 6 November occurred the catastrophe that was probably decisive in Somerset calling off the operation. That day began with the most concentrated British offensive yet, the plan being for four divisions to make a simultaneous attack from different directions and converge on Mount Misery. Somerset, with as many mounted troops as he could muster, was to ascend the Waterkloof while divisions of infantry and levies moved in from the Fuller's Hoek and Kroomie directions. Fordyce, with the 74th, 91st, two guns and Mfengu, was to advance from the north, across the plateau. It was on Fordyce's division that the brunt of the day's fighting fell. This division was the first to arrive at Mount Misery, and was soon being fired upon from all directions from the bush and forests lining the flat. No.2 Company, 74th, which had been instructed to assault the section between the Kroomie and Waterkloof passes, instead began inclining too far to the right and, moving along a hollow, failed to observe the enemy in their front. With his men 'skirmishing in every direction around him ... charging and hurrahing', Fordyce shouted to the straying company to keep to the left, but his voice was drowned in the din of battle. He rushed down the small hillock on which he had been standing and, from an exposed position, waved his cap. It was then that a Khoi marksman shot him through the chest, the ball passing right through him. Within half an hour, he was dead. He is the most senior British officer to have lost his life in all nine Frontier Wars.