MORANT, “THE BREAKER,”

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 395, 21 April 1902, Page 2

MORANT, “THE BREAKER,”

The following sketch of Lieutenant Morant, better known as “ Tho Breaker,” who was shot for the murder of unarmed Boers in South Africa, appears in the Sydney Bulletin : —Hard to connect the rollicking, reckless, Harry Harbord Morant—scapegrace son of an English Vice-Admiral; friend of fair ladies; the man who followed the hounds with Sydney Hunt Club, and followed Warrego cattle with Paddy Mageo; “ The Breaker ” who rhymed and rode, loved and jested, from the Gulf to South Head light; hard to connect him with a dishonored grave already fast levelling on the African veldt. But who shall read another’s page of Destiny, or his own ? But a few months ago it seems since Moraut was in Sydney —his hard, tanned, determined, jovial scamp’s phiz, aglow with high spirits; his strong capable hands eager for a friendly grip ; and his husky, cheery voice tuned to the irresistible invitation. Only a little more battered, more worn with ten years of roving and rioting ; with only a very little of shiftness in his frank eyes to mark desperate straits navigated by thiß good-for-naught—the sorrow of his family, the solace and menace of his friends. But he was close to perilous forty; and felt it. He was losing his nerve, and needed a peg or two to screw him up for a stiff mount. He was no longer tin his soberer moments) the devil-may.-care horseman who despairing of finding a gate in a big barwon paddock, blindfolded nis mare and put her at the wires, getting half through, and the rest over, do he would compromise with Fortune and try to placate the Vice-Admiral imaged sitting stiff and unrelenting in his armohair at the United Service Club. He had written many verses—some atonement, surely ; some earnest of merit; some proof that here and there a wild oat had grown fruitful. Would the Bulletin buy them ? “ Yes.” And publish them ? “ Some day.” Morant’s face fell; at forty one has little time to lose. Then came the war. That was Morant’s chance. He had made his way to Adelaide, nearer to the bourne that the prodigal son longed for. And the war 1 — it offered him the chance to go Home with glory, with military honors that he had fought for (how he would fight for them 1) with a record of something attempted, something done, and that something the thing above all others to gladden the heart of the old man who sat, stiff and stern, with the Burmah medal and the Baltic medal on his breast, in his chair at the United Service Club.

Morant 'listed with a South Australian contingent, and went forth to battle—not for the Empire, but for the old home, the son's right, the fireside place, and for the acknowledgement of his redemption from the swine. Little he cared whom he fought against: he fought for his own hand. And at first he quitted himself like a man—like the beast-man, maybe, in the bad cause : but valiantly, according to his light. When his contingent returned to Australia, he remained ; he had not yet wiped out the stain of the past. He won his step, and was dubbed lieutenant in a troop of irregular horse—collecting the wilder and more vehement daredevils into a reckless band of (as it appears) gentlemen rankers little better than bravos or banditti. With others, as the slowlyfiltered tale declares, he was concerned in the callous or revengeful shooting of surrendered Boers, in cold blood; and, with another, he himself was shot, a dread example, by order of a military court. His friends can imagine his thoughts far ranging as he stood, with all lost' and honor, facing the muzzles of the firingparty—gay (who doubts it ?J and defiant to the last. . .

No rehabilitation, no salvation; but the death of the condemned following the life of the banned. . . and that news to come home to the old father, sitting stern and grey as he scans the despatches, hoping (as what father would not hope?) for some excuse for condonation, some valid plea for pardon. . . An ill death : in the conventional sense, a wasted life : yet and for all and in spite of all, those who knew him will hold Harry Morant in tender memory. Black Sheep, he earned his adverse fate; but (the Black Sheep’s paradox) he never, never deserved it.