These men were not tried veterans; they were taking their parts in the first battle of their first campaign. But several of them had been friends from their youth up, and all of them were Anglo-Indians—men whose exile from the land of their birth serves but to intensify their love for England and her greatness. Loyalty to friend and country! This is the magic touchstone of the soldier’s discipline and heroism.
_Photo: J. Charlesworth_ J.H. BURN-MURDOCH ]
Should any cynic dare to say that the men who did these deeds were thirsting for glory, or inspired by a hope of winning the Cross for Valour, or even conscious of doing more than a common soldier’s duty demanded, let him read the narrative of their actions, as told by themselves or their comrades, and be answered! In the whole literature of war I know nothing more realistic than Trooper Burn-Murdoch’s description of the incident in which he was a half-unconscious participator; when lying wounded he was taken from under fire by Captain Chamney, and finally carried out of action on horseback in that officer’s arms. The story is too characteristic of the battlefield to bear mutilation. For the sake of space, though with reluctance, some picturesque passages must be sacrificed; but, for the rest, as Trooper Burn-Murdoch told it originally in his letters to the ‘Englishman,’ he shall tell it again here:
The kopje which we had to hold looked down on a sloping plain, and at a distance varying from 700 to 1,100 yards off, and running nearly parallel with our kopjes, was a deep dry river bed or donga. This donga ran right up towards the Boer position. In my humble opinion we should have done better to have placed some dismounted men in this donga, and so prevented the enemy using it as a zigzag trench or covered way towards our position. Instead of this, we literally stuck to the kopje. And in the early part of the fight I noticed, and drew my mates’ attention to the fact, that a lot of Boers were riding towards this river bed, but never seemed to cross it.
As the day wore on our position on these kopjes became somewhat too warm to be pleasant. And, judging by the whistle of the bullets, we seemed to have the enemy on our left flank as well as in front. It was about this time that our gallant Major, who scorned to take cover, got two mortal bullet wounds through his lungs; our doctor very pluckily set to and cut off his tunic and plugged the bullet-holes, quite regardless of the heavy fire he was subjected to. But it was of no use; in a few moments the brave old soldier breathed his last. All he said was, ‘Ah, well, I’m done for ... it’s not so bad as I should have expected.’ But there was no time now to think of him or any other poor wounded comrade.