Court of Inquiry which investigated the Lindley affair: "I was shown a telegram to the Commandant Kroonstad from General Colvile directing me to join him with my regiment at Lindley”. Colvile denied ever having sent the telegram. It is possible that the Boers had tapped the telegraph lines and sent a bogus message to lure the Imperial Yeomanry into an ambush. It is more likely that bad staff work by British headquarters who issued the order to Spragge but did not tell Colvile. Spragg’s battalion marched at dawn on the 26th and that afternoon met a party of armed Boers. The Boers claimed to be going to Kroonstad to surrender and Spragge naively disarmed them, invited them to lunch and then allowed them to proceed. The Boers promptly returned to Lindley with useful intelligence. Private Maurice Fitzgibbon of the Dublin company, son of one of Ireland's most senior judges, recalled: "The scouts of the Boer commandos at Lindley had been permitted to enter our lines to find out our numbers, our armaments and the amount of our supplies, had even had lunch with us and all this information and hospitality at the expense of a few out-of-date rifles and a few perjured oaths." The 13th battalion of the Imperial Yeomanry marched into Lindley and came under rifle fire from the Boers. Spragg’s men moved from the town to positions on koppies outside the town. After two days the Boers brought concentrated artillery fire to bear on both the koppies. Between the two koppies was a small post of a few men, one of whom decided to wave a white flag in surrender. This man was shot by his comrades. With the southern koppie already in Boer hands, the officer in charge, under the mistaken notion that he was bound by the white flag of his subordinate, ordered a ceasefire. The remainder of the British position became untenable. Seeing the futility of further effort, Spragge also surrendered. Lord Longford, with the 45th Company to the north, and Capt Maude, with the 46th Company in the west, held out for a little longer but they too finally surrendered to Boer commander Piet de Wet, the brother of Christiaan de Wet. All firing ceased at about 2.00pm.The British casualties during the five days' fighting amounted to 80, of whom 23 were fatal. Piet de Wet bagged 530 men, including Spragge, Lord Longford, Lords