A REMARKABLE BAYONET CHARGE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 182, 20 July 1900, Page 4

A REMARKABLE BAYONET CHARGE.

THE GOEDONS AGAINST THE BOBHS,

Writing from Thabanchu on May 6tb, the war correspondent of the Gape Times gives the following somewhat high-flown account of the sensational bayonet charge of May I:—A half company of these Highlanders, under Captain Towse, had possession of the base of a kopje, which ran off into a deep ravine, a great kopje rising almost perpendicularly—a curious feature of so many of these South African hillsright opposite it, Suddenly from amongst the rocks and stunted bushes sprang the Boers, full 300 strong to fifty, who olosing upon the Gordons, demanded, that they should throw 1 down their arms and surrender. The suddeness of the attack seemed for a fleeting second to paralyse the Highlanders, but only for a second. Surrender! No! Death or disablement, but not surrender. The traditions of the regiment must not be tarnished. Captain Towse roused his men to action with an order that rang distinct on the clear air of that lovely May morning: " Fix bayonets and charge." They fixed, they charged, and they transfixed—the dumbfounded Boers who did not bolt. There was no hesitation then, no sign of wavering, no dismay in the teeth of those terrible odds of six to one in the struggle for life of the fifty gallant Scots. In one brief fraction of time the Gordons dropped their hands to their bayonets, the next the steel was out and fixed to ready rifles.

Then with a cheer Captain Towse dashed onward at the levelled rifles of his foe, and his men, like hounds unleashed, dashed after him. The Boers made one effort to stem the onslaught, but only one, and then they broke atd fled, and the Gordons, roused with the awful lust of battle, rushed onward in pursuit, on over rock and bush, on through dongas and treacherous watercourses, and wherever Briton and Boer met, the Boer got the bayonet. The men as they thrust the shining steel home, shouted to one another to " Remember Magersfonteinl" They did remember it. Hurling the dead or dying aside they sped after the flying with strong feet trained to such stiff work on hostile heaths and hills. The Boers could not stand against the wild rush of those aroused men, their hearts melted within them as snow melts before the rising sun, and in a few minutes the Gordons held undisputed possession of the position, a position they had won against big odds indeed. It was not secured by strategy, it was r.ot gained by guile, but (hey won it at the bayonet's point, and they held it as a proud token that they had not forgotten that memorable and mournful morning on Magersfontein. Surprised into surrender? Not the Gordons, But the price of victory was not light. Several who marched with gallant Towse will never buckle bayonet to thigh again; they lie in their rude soldiers graves on the site of the Victory they#helped to achieve. And Captain Towse, gallant leader, bravest of the brave, he too went down in the thickest of the fight, shot, but not fatally, though the bullet left him with the cruel affliction blinded for life. Brave> gallant Towse I Scotia will be proud of would hsro. He hag taught the enemy that the sons of Scotland are not lightly beaten, no matter the immensity of the odds. Had his heart failed him for one minute, had he faltered when the demand came to surrender, one more b'ot on our national honour would have had to be recorded, instead of a deed the recollection of which makes men'B blood tingle in "their veins,