WILSON’S LAST STAND.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 21, 23 January 1913, Page 3

WILSON’S LAST STAND.

The following account of the heroic last stand made by Alan Wilson on the Shanghai River during the Matabele campaign, appears in the “Rhodesia Annual for 1912-13,” edited by H. F. Knapp. It is part of a transcript by Mr Wilfrid Bussy, from the lips of an old Matabele warrior. “They came early, the War Kings of the White Man. To this day it seems that I could well-nigh have told their tally on the fingers of two hands. But we were ready. They spake boldly, asking for the King’s surrender. For answer there was no

sound but the snapping of the hunting dogs that had run to greet them from the shade of the scherm. Again they

spake, demanding that the King should stand forth before them. This time we gave them bullets. I ordered the firing. We had thought to end it thus, but these were more than men, and it seemed as they rode away even before the shooting had begun. And lo! the tense exultant smile of the hunter was on the faces of them all! It is the truth.

Half a mile away they stood, their

backs to a large ant-hill, their horses —dying fast—forming a rampart to their front. That was our hour, and the horns of our crescent fell upon them ,and lust of war singing in the hearts of our warriors as it had never sung before, X hear it now! “I cannot tell the tale as I saw it, but I can see it as a thing of yesterday —I, who am oldest of the old. These warriors of the gods stood up like giants, black and awful in the thick, blue haze of the wet dawn. And still it rained, as our fathers and our fathers’ fathers had never known it rain. At last came the end. There were six of the party with breath still in them, and oh! these six—men or gods, only gods can say—these fellows a-singing as though their hearts were bursting with most wondrous joy. I knew not the meaning of the sing, but some among us knew it for the song of the last things of all—the song of triumph which tells of the glories

| of the Great White Mother who rules ; over the Impis of the English. | “I speak truly—these warriors were ' Men of Men, and their Fathers were I Men before them!

] “At last there was but one. He j fought on, a grim smile on his face, ! and the fire of a devil in his eyes. : He took guns and bullets from his I fallen brothers, and fought on to the ' end. This was Wilson himself, fixe White Chief. After his cartridges were finished, and he could find no I more, he stood—silent and alone—waiting for us to come in and make the final thrust. He taunted us to make an end, bxxt we knew not what the gods might send to the warrior that ventured first, and we stood our ground. Then at last one among us took lieaid, and began to move forward, stealthily as a jackal, and more than half afraid. Coming close, he gazed on the loxxely White Man as though bewitched by i the magic that was in his eyes; then suddenly, with his mind made up, he lifted his assegai and drove it with i a thud into his heart. “Still he did not fall. At this a : thousand spears flew through the air. ‘ Very slowly, making no sound, the ■ White Man sank forward upon Ids ( face, and so lay still, “We closed in, hoping to dip our

spears, for these had been fighting men such as none had ever known—nay, not since the nations had come first to the world. But this the truth —as there is One above to judge—one from among the dead half rose and fired upon us, slaying the best among our chiefs.

“He was a tall, broad warrior, with a moustache of gold drooping low over his chin. Once he sank prostrate to the ground, a bullet here in his hip, but rose again to his knees, firing always, until a hundred shots struck him, and once more he died. We could see the gods had sent their magic to protect his body and those of his comrades from the marks of our spears, and we fled—aye, the army oi a king—and not till nightfall did we venture near.

“But that W as the end of t, and that was the ending of the Great War, for we had set out to fight men, and

we had found more than men, and we knew it was hopeless to pit our strength against such as these.

“Ai! The Matabele are no more. Yet I have no shame, for these we strove against were Men of Men, and their Fathers were Men before them'. ’