THE SHOOTING SCANDAL.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 389, 14 April 1902, Page 2

THE SHOOTING SCANDAL.

The Clutha Leadzr says editorially that it received four months ago from an eye witness a full report of the crimes charged against the Bush Veldt; Carbineers, but that the correspondent asked that the report should be kept private till the conclusion of the war, and it felt in honor bound to comply with his request. The writer was an eyewitness of some of tho tragedies enacted by the officers. He was one of those who laid the informations againßt them, and was the principal witness at tho trial. He says:— We cursed Lieutenant for all the born fools that ever wore a uniform, for not leiting another lieutenant have time to get round on the flank before opening fire. We mado sure we would follow up at daylight, but the next thing I found was our men trekking away in the opposite direction. I sang out to Lieutenant that the Boers were just up in a kopje. I thought he had gone out to stop the advance guard, but no, it was only to hurry up the movements of the other Cape cart, which con* tained the wounded Boer.

We got a bit mixed up in the routes. I told an officer that by another track we could make the fort in twenty miles, but could not take the Cape carts. “The Cape carts, burn them.” “ Then what about the wounded man?” I asked. “ They should have taken my advice last night and shot him.” Now, this sort of talk put my back up, but I said nothing, but fell into the rearguard.

I arrived at the river where the rest outspanned. A bullock had been killed, and the niggers were having a war-dance and wild goings on. Then I found myself warned for a firing party to shoot the wounded Boer, who was said to have been by court-martial sentenced to death. “ What for ? ” I asked. “ Oh, don’t know, but I’ve warned you.” “ Well, I’m not going to doit.” “ They can make you a prisoner.” “ Then I’ll go prisoner, but I'll not shoot a wounded man.” I raised my voice in most emphatic protest, A few more did the same, while others, instead of refusing, cleared out. I stood to my guns, and said if they were dead on for shooting they Bhould have followed up the Boers, and, come what would, I would not make one of the firing party. By and by my sergeant-major came up and said: “ It’s all right; we have got another man. You will not be asked to do it.” Still I protested against it, and spoke to the fellows in the same mess with me, four of whom were told off for the firing party. One of them was quite willing, but the others said they would have to obey orders. A number of others stood out, and an old mate of George Arnold’s in the police (Sergeant Wilson), who had been a prisoner with the Boers, was equally excited with me. Then, seeing the feeling of the men, one of tho lieutenants sang out : “If you’re so chicken-hearted I’ll shoot him myself.” A pity for all of us he was allowed to do it.

A lad named Botha, a Boer fighting for us, was told off, too. He told me : “ I know him good. I went to school with him. I don’t like to do it, but they will shoot me if I don’t.”

The wind-up was that the firing party was called up. One was a volunteer, a Victorian, the sort Victoria should be proud of. Another shootist had belonged, to the Essex Volunteers, always ready to blow any Boer’s lights out. I once thought of going away from the sickening sight, but instead I deliberately walked over to a cart wherein he sat, intending to mußter up what Dutch courage I had to speak to him. He took from his pocket a piece of paper and wrote a note. A slight twitching of the face was all the concern he displayed. Some Kaffirs lifted him out of the Cape cart in a blanket, and eat him down some twenty yards away, with his back to the firing party. He spoke no word, but clasped his hand, and as the volley rang out he fell from his sitting position backwards. Then a lieutenant stepped over to him and put a revolver shot through his head, and all was over.

Just prior to the shooting, Lieutenant Morant addressed the firing party, but what he said I could not exactly catch except something about Captain Hunt’s death. Morant also came over to me and said : “ I know it’s dashed hard lines for him, but it’s got to be done. See how the Boers knocked Captain Hunt about.” I said: “ Captain Hunt died a soldier’s death. He was killed in a fair go, and beyond being stripped there was noimaltreatment of him, and anyhow the Kaffirs might have stripped him.” He said no, that Captain Hunt’s tunic and trousers had been found in a Cape cart; but I said the boy was not wearing them. “ Anyhow,” he said, “it’s got to be done. It’s unfortunate he should be the first to suffer.” I still held it was not right to shoot him after carrying him so far, but as up to this time Morant and I bad been good friends, I said no more, but tore off my B.V.C. badges and cursed such a form of soldiering.