IN A WARM CORNER.

Motueka Star, Volume II, Issue 84, 3 June 1902, Page 4

IN A WARM CORNER.

;One of the Imperial Yeomanry, hailing, fi-qm Hart pool, who was with Donop’b conyqy when it was captured by the Boers op. February 25, wrote to .his mother . ‘On the night of the 24th I was on outpost, duty all night—pitch dark and raining in -torrents. We had reveille at 3 a.nr. on the 25th, and moved off at 4.30 a'm. We hadn’t got a couple sf miles from the, camping ground when the Bpersopenened a tei> I‘ific rifle fire on our advanced screen. We were then moving up a gentle slope, and the enemy were hidden in the wood which was on top of the rise. I was riding alongside the waggons leading two sick horses, my own horse being sick as well. When the first volley came the horses turned round and stampeded. 1 let go -of the two that I was. leading and stuck to my own. Shortly aftcr my horse fell, and of course I came a, cropper. Howeher,T got out of that all right, but was minus a horse. The worst of it was I sprained my shoulder. My rifle also got clogged up with dirt. After cleaning the rifle with a couple of blank cartridges I advanced into the firing line. All the time I was engaged the Boer bullets were whizzing all about me. By this time the Boers were within 200 or 300 yards of us, 1 was lying' down behind an anthill and blazing away for all I was worth. There were about I,5<X) or 1,70.0 of them, and we were not 400 strong. They came all round us, and when I looked found the waggons were a mile ahead of us. Of course, there-whs nothing for it but to lie down. We got the older to retire, and I was doing so when I got a bullet through the lower part of my lungs. I spun round like a. top and dropped. However, I kept on firing until my ammunition was all spent, and then waited, for Johnny Boer to come up and put me ‘out of mess’. When he did come up he g t my rifle, hut I had previously broken t so as to be of no use to him. He stripped me of.everything 1 wore except my blood stained trousers. When-I managed to get on my feet I spied an over turned ambulance van. I made for this as best as I could, and after a desperate struggle reached it in safety. The fight lasted about two hours, and the Boers got every blessed thing. AH the time I was on the veldt and in the ambulance I had nothing to eat or drink, and my last meal was a biscuit and a cup of coffee.”