Soldiers Who Are missing.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XXXVI, Issue 6583, 28 December 1899, Page 4

Soldiers Who Are missing.

WARFARE HAS MANY ROMANTIC EPISODES. Despite the utmost precautions taken, and the oarefal investigations made by oar military authorities, after every oampaign scores of men are posted as " missing." Doubtless many so posted were killed or captured by the enemy, but still there are always a great many about whose fate must hang a shroud of impenetrable myßtery, although for years relative* of the missing ones continues making inquiries in all quarters. A certain corporal who went .safely through tha fight at Lang's Nek during the campaign against the Boers was posted up as missing after the disastrous action on the Mnjuba Mountain. He was not known to be among the killed, wOunded, or prisoners. was known of his fate until after the Jameson Raid, wben h» was seen at Krugoradorp attired in the typical Boor costume, by a former The ex-corporal had, in fact, taken pnrt in the fight against Jameson's troopers, and did not scruple to inform his late chum that durii g the night advance up Majuba Hill he had slipped away and joined the enemy. He had for a long time disliked the British'service, he said, o«ing to the persecution) real or imaginary, of his company captain. For several yetrs after the awful disaster to out troops on the slopes of a placard appeared in most British regimental messes asking for information respecting a soldier belonging to the 24th Regiment who was pfe«ent at the scene of carnage. The placard offered no reward, but from the plaintive ,-Hture of tbe inquiries not a soldier in Her Majesty's Army but would have gUdly forwarded jnform-tion it he could, the first item on tho placard dealt witb a full personal description of tbe missing | soldiers. Then followed queries respecting the stand msde by toe 24th before their colours were- takan, finishing up ' with tho question, "Was he among the few who efscoped down to the Buffalo River «nd was ther- killed along with others, wi ose chimonition had Lecune exhausted ?" Tais last query conjures up a vivid mental pioturs,

During the Soudan oampaign of 19845. a young soldier of the name of Worman was put down as missing after the sanguinary struggle around th ■ walla at Abu E'ea, but he was never seen during tbe fight by any of his comrades, nor waa ,hip dead body found. He wag known to have answered the roll-call on the night previous to the fight and had exchanged confidences with a chum, to whom he handed over a gold watch richly engraved on the back with orest I and monogram. Probably during the [ night he had wandered from the zeriba, i but his fate was never known. Until quite recently placards have been regularly posted up asking for information respecting this particular man, who is believed to bave been of noble birtb, but without results. In a letter from an army chaplain, which I was a few days ago privileged to see, appears a strange account of the fate of a man belonging to the Dorsets. After one of the fierce skirmishes with the Afridis, this soldier, who was noted for hia daring, waß posted a? missing. It was supposed that in the gathering darkness he had missed his way among the rookey defiles where our troops were fighiing. Probably he had remained behind for some purpose or other, and missed bis company. For many months his fate was uncertain, eventually it was found that be had managed to elude the enemy, and eventually turned up in Cabul, where be was employed for the greater part of ft year in the Ameers arsenal. The faot was that he had been a gunsmith before be enlisted, and was, of course, invaluable 10 tbe Eastern potentate. One morning, however, ha was found strangled in his room near the palace. Doubtless jealousy on the part of an Afghan was the motive that prompted tbe commiatiou of the crime. —Cassell's Saturday Journal.